WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:02.879 Welcome back to the final episode of our three part 2 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.719 series and Migrant Work above a Tree in China. If 3 00:00:05.719 --> 00:00:07.960 you haven't listened to the other two episodes yet, I 4 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.279 suggest to you go back and listen to those first. 5 00:00:27.399 --> 00:00:33.240 You got twenty Ladders Shobo gon Do Las Young Dodgers. 6 00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:36.439 Before we get started, just a quick reminder that our 7 00:00:36.479 --> 00:00:39.679 podcast is brought to you by our Patriot supporters. Our 8 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:42.679 supports fund our work and in return get exclusive early 9 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:46.759 access to podcast episodes, add three episodes, bonus episodes, free 10 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:50.880 and discounted merchandise, and other content. For example, our Patreon 11 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:53.719 supporters can listen to all three parts of this series now, 12 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.200 as well as an exclusive Patreon only bonus episode that 13 00:00:57.280 --> 00:00:59.840 goes into more detail about the mirkerot work at home, 14 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:03.039 some of the writers that we discuss and their influences. 15 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:06.159 Join us or find out more at patreon dot com 16 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:10.000 slash working Class History link In the show notes, you 17 00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:12.959 might remember that this series is being produced and presented 18 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.439 with the help of friend of the podcast, Jack Franco, 19 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:28.200 so at this point we'll hand back over to him 20 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:29.040 wag Zone. 21 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:34.079 In the previous two episodes, we've talked about the harsh 22 00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:37.000 social conditions that Chinese migrant worker poetry comes out of. 23 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:40.799 We also discussed the important role poetry plays in Chinese society. 24 00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:44.519 In this episode, we'll look at issues around censorship and 25 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:47.719 unofficial publications, as well as how the diversity of the 26 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:50.799 working class comes out in the diversity of working class writing, 27 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:54.719 asking questions about who gets included within the term working 28 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:58.719 class itself. We're joined again by mcgil Gancravell, Professor of 29 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:02.120 Chinese Literature at Leiden University in the Netherlands, an expert 30 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.920 migrant worker poetry in China. McGill spoke to us about 31 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:08.800 working class poetry in China, what it is, who writes it, 32 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:11.319 and who it's for, and how it developed across the 33 00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:14.719 last century, the development which is inextricably linked with the 34 00:02:14.759 --> 00:02:16.000 country's communist movement. 35 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:19.960 Another way to look at this culturally specifically would be 36 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:24.919 the genealogy of working class writing in modern China. Now, 37 00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:27.680 then you're really talking about the twentieth and twenty first centuries, 38 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.520 and you know, in very broad strokes, I could probably 39 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:35.039 carve that up into three periods. One, you know, the 40 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:38.479 specialists would call the Republican period, which is roughly the 41 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:42.199 first half of the twentieth century, culminating in the Civil 42 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:47.280 War between the Communists and the Nationalists, where it was 43 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:49.560 by and large and mostly, and I'm going to need 44 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:51.960 to sort of, you know, sweepingly generalize here a little bit, 45 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:57.560 it was by and large intellectuals who produced working class writing, 46 00:02:57.599 --> 00:02:59.680 which means that we're talking about writing about the working 47 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.520 class as my people who don't necessarily speak from first 48 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:07.680 hand experience. There's an interesting debate about, you know, defining 49 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.840 working class literature, not just in China obviously, right, I mean, 50 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:15.319 is this about the firsthand experience of the author or 51 00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:17.120 is it about something else? You know, is it okay 52 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:18.960 for you to not have lived that life but to 53 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:22.439 write about it. The second period would then be the 54 00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:27.479 high socialist period, where the state actually massively gets behind 55 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:33.120 cultural production from the proletariat for the proletariat, more specifically 56 00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:38.719 for the you know, workers, peasants and soldiers or gongwong 57 00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:41.639 being in Chinese that were sort of the target audience. 58 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:44.800 Now there you have a very ambivalent situation because you 59 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:48.439 have a you know, what I call a politically a 60 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:52.159 dignified political subject, right, the worker, so to speak, the 61 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:55.360 vision of the worker. You have literature that is of 62 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:58.240 this worker, for this worker, perhaps by this worker, but 63 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:01.439 it becomes unclear who actually the writing, depending on where 64 00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:04.000 you sit and what kind of archival evidence you have 65 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:06.479 access to, and so on and so forth. But you 66 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:11.280 have a literature that is, let's say, often very jubilant, right. 67 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:15.599 It celebrates the motherland, It is about say, you know, 68 00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:18.319 it could be about the Korean War, it could be 69 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:21.399 about land reform, it could be about socialist re education, 70 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:24.600 it could be about the new oil rigs in the 71 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:27.800 Far West, etc. And then in the third phase, and 72 00:04:27.839 --> 00:04:30.240 that's what we're talking about today, we move in what 73 00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:33.439 you can probably call the post socialist period. And you 74 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:36.279 know what I said about a transformation of the proletariat 75 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:40.600 into a pre carriat. So that is another culturally specific 76 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:45.160 framework to sort of place this poetry, as it were. 77 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:49.360 The literature of these different historical phases also ask questions 78 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:52.759 of what working class writing really means. Well. The second 79 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:56.040 and third phase is McGill mentioned, are both written by workers. 80 00:04:56.079 --> 00:04:58.920 In the case of the former, that poetry isn't officially 81 00:04:58.959 --> 00:05:03.560 recognized part of the ruling parties state building project. By contrast, 82 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:07.040 contemporary migrant worker poetry exists in the margins of what 83 00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:11.399 is sayable in Chinese society. The possibilities open to poets 84 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:14.959 were and are in many ways limited, forcing them to improvise, 85 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:18.720 creating an exciting but risky underground movement of so called 86 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:22.920 unofficial publications or DIY poetry that are not within the 87 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:27.279 confines of state censorship and party themes. McGill is responsible 88 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:31.160 for a unique collection of unofficial poetry journals available outside 89 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:35.199 of China at Leda University. It is now largely digitized 90 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:37.639 and available online and you can check it out at 91 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:38.800 the link in the show notes. 92 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:41.240 I think the first thing we'd need to do is 93 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:45.279 to reconsider what publication means. Right, perhaps if you ask, 94 00:05:45.399 --> 00:05:48.920 you know, somebody on the street wherever, you know, your neighbor, 95 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:50.920 somebody who's not a specialist of this sort of thing, 96 00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:53.000 has not been exposed to it, you know, what does 97 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:54.920 publication mean? They might say, well, you know, I mean 98 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:57.920 it's like a book or a journal, and it's probably 99 00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:01.040 got the stamp of a publisher on EDM ISBN number, 100 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:04.519 that sort of thing, and you know, that kind of 101 00:06:04.519 --> 00:06:06.399 definition is not going to get us anywhere if we 102 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:10.920 talk about this kind of cultural production. So publication, to 103 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:15.279 me essentially is producing something could be a literary text, 104 00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:18.160 it could be music, could be you know, you name it, 105 00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:22.680 whose audience you no longer control. Right, If I write 106 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:26.120 a poem, and let's say I live in you know, 107 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:29.680 under a politically oppressive regime, and my poem is politically 108 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:32.680 sensitive and I'm worried about it, then I might, you know, 109 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:34.959 show it to one of my best friends, but I 110 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:37.360 might not even give them a copy. I might read 111 00:06:37.399 --> 00:06:39.560 it to them once and then burn it. And all 112 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:42.079 of these stories are documented. Right, this happened in China. 113 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:44.519 It happened in other places in China, for example, during 114 00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:48.199 the Cultural Revolution. So controlling your audience, but the moment 115 00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:51.199 that it is out there and the audience is no 116 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:55.160 longer something that you control, this stuff can travel. Then 117 00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:58.040 as far as I'm concerned, we're talking about publication. So 118 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:04.240 then you enter into this phenomenon called unofficial publication. And 119 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:08.240 as it happens, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, for historical reasons 120 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:13.000 and contemporary reasons, there is a very strong tradition of 121 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:17.639 unofficial poetry publishing in China. It's a hugely impressive and 122 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:24.079 fascinating DIY circuit, and it's really interesting because there's many 123 00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:27.279 many shades of gray between the black and white sort 124 00:07:27.279 --> 00:07:30.959 of extremes of the spectrum of state sanctioned, state supported, 125 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:34.879 state driven literature orthodoxy on the one hand, and let's 126 00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:40.600 say truly underground, politically sensitive, dangerous texts on the other 127 00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:43.759 there's all these shades of gray in between. I think 128 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:46.600 this matters a great deal also to the migrant work 129 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:48.600 of poetry at the Battle of poetry that we're talking 130 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:53.360 about today. And then you see every possible permutation of 131 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:58.519 let's say, print and online and official and unofficial. So 132 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:03.160 there's official publications in print and online, those unofficial publications 133 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:06.439 in print and online, like I said, blogs, social media 134 00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:09.360 and so on and so forth. And that means that 135 00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:12.240 in order to get a sense of how this poetry 136 00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:15.800 entered the public realm in the sense of being published, well, 137 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:17.879 you need to cast your net wide, and you need 138 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:21.079 to discard any illusions of control over actually getting the 139 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:24.240 data that you need because you're not working through the 140 00:08:24.360 --> 00:08:29.360 formal circuits of catalogs in libraries and bookstores kept by 141 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:31.279 the publishers themselves and so on and so forth. 142 00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:34.440 For me Giel, this almost functions as a form of 143 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:37.840 work in glass organizing in a country where independent trade 144 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:41.360 unions are non existent and labor unrest is frequently repressed. 145 00:08:42.279 --> 00:08:45.120 This is particularly relevant for migrant workers who are already 146 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:48.840 legally marginalized, with little or no access to formal employment 147 00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:53.200 associations or aid. Their decisions to publish and organize unofficially 148 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:55.960 is a way of claiming this marginal space for themselves, 149 00:08:56.399 --> 00:08:59.000 much like the migrant workers home in Peterson we encountered 150 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:00.960 in the previous episode. 151 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:05.960 As to organizing in the context of talking about working 152 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:09.559 class history and working class literature, as you know, one 153 00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:13.279 topic related to working class history, again, we need to 154 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:17.320 clarify what that word means. If you're talking about labor organization. 155 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:20.440 There is very little of that in the bottom up 156 00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:22.960 sense of the word, in the union sense of the 157 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:27.600 word in contemporary China, in the People's Republic of China, 158 00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:32.240 So that is basically out. And the moment that you know, 159 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:37.840 initiatives like this raise their heads there is you know, 160 00:09:37.879 --> 00:09:39.799 the boot's going to come down. That's basically going to 161 00:09:39.799 --> 00:09:42.279 be a repressive movement by the government because they simply 162 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:42.879 won't have it. 163 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:45.480 One example of the boot coming down on work as 164 00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:48.000 initiatives is a struggle which took place at the Shunjun 165 00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:52.360 Jassic Technology Factory in twenty eighteen. Parts of an organizing 166 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:55.960 campaign origining among Maoist students, a group of workers at 167 00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:59.480 the Jassic factory started a petition for unionization, which was 168 00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:02.639 signed by about eighty workers were approximately ten percent of 169 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:06.159 the workforce At this point. Employees found out about the 170 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:09.360 union drive and fire the ring leaders. When the sacked 171 00:10:09.399 --> 00:10:12.879 workers demonstrated outside the factory, they were attacked by police, 172 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.200 resulting in more protests, this time outside the police station. 173 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:20.279 Multiple waves of repression subsequently came down and the workers 174 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:24.120 and their supporters, with dozens of activists arrested and Peaking 175 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:29.080 University disbanding their Marxist study society. The crackdown also expanded 176 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:31.840 to include labor activists with no connections at all to 177 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:34.600 the struggle at Jassic, and in the wake of that struggle, 178 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:39.879 the Chinese state became even more hostile towards labor activism. 179 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:42.000 Organized and could also mean something else, and that might 180 00:10:42.039 --> 00:10:45.720 be interesting to what we're talking about today, because you know, 181 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.320 literature happens through institutions, right just like other cultural productions, 182 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:56.840 through universities, through bookstores, libraries, through learned societies, through reading clubs, 183 00:10:56.919 --> 00:11:01.159 through you know, the list goes on, and that kind 184 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:07.039 of organizing obviously has been happening in China around this poetry. 185 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:09.440 And that takes us straight back to what I said 186 00:11:09.480 --> 00:11:15.360 about Shase of Gray, because they're very interestingly, we don't 187 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:20.240 get a picture that says the people that write migrant 188 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:23.840 worker poetry are inherently and automatically going to be in 189 00:11:23.919 --> 00:11:27.759 opposition to the government line, and so they're going to 190 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:30.039 be have to be quiet and careful and do this 191 00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:33.039 in the margins, and you know, let nobody get wind 192 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:35.679 of it and be sort of careful and tread carefully 193 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:38.120 in what they write about. It's not as simple as 194 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:41.559 that at all, because in fact, the government looking at this, 195 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.120 and the government, in its turn, I guess, trying to 196 00:11:46.279 --> 00:11:51.000 place this in a genealogy of workers literature in the 197 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:53.519 people's public of China, a tradition that it is proud of, 198 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:57.879 is going to also support this writing. So it's not 199 00:11:57.960 --> 00:11:59.879 as if this is some sort of phenomenon that's going 200 00:11:59.879 --> 00:12:02.000 to be stamped out at the first opportunity. That very 201 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:04.559 much depends on the message that's coming out of the 202 00:12:04.600 --> 00:12:05.879 poetry in question. 203 00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:10.200 The relationship between these unofficial publications and poets and local 204 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:13.799 or state power is ambiguous and not clear, cup Will. 205 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:15.960 China has a long and proud tradition of work of 206 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:18.759 poetry that the state is keen to embrace. They are 207 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:22.720 equally careful that expressions of dissent are carefully managed. This 208 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:26.279 reality of censorship molds the expression of migrant worker poets. 209 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.320 The first thing that I'm made to think of as 210 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:36.279 a China scholar is that the leading role of the 211 00:12:36.279 --> 00:12:40.320 Communist Party, you know, that's enshrined in the constitution of 212 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:44.360 the People's Problem of China, and in practice that means 213 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:50.120 that the party very effectively I mean, well, that's a 214 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:52.279 complicated discussion, but yeah, I'm going to say that very 215 00:12:52.279 --> 00:12:57.960 effectively rules the place right and you've very definitely got 216 00:12:57.960 --> 00:12:59.960 to hand it to them. And that's not meant to 217 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:04.720 sound sort of, you know, cynical about it. But it 218 00:13:04.879 --> 00:13:09.200 is a large and difficult and complex place, and the 219 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:12.679 challenges for the government also and especially in regard to 220 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:18.200 governance of the working population are immense. So to really 221 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:22.679 simplify terribly, so to speak, there's a choice that they've 222 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:26.000 been faced with ever since the reform and opening up 223 00:13:26.039 --> 00:13:29.840 era started four to five decades ago, of keeping labor 224 00:13:29.919 --> 00:13:34.000 cheap in order to make their way into the global 225 00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:38.279 capitalist system at high speed, to become a part of that, 226 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:43.240 to ramp up productivity, to create jobs, even if these 227 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.720 were precarious jobs, even if they were three D jobs, 228 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:48.519 and so on and so forth. On the one hand, 229 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:53.039 and the desire that I very definitely ascribed to the 230 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:58.360 Chinese government to make life more livable and make life 231 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:01.639 better and advance the sort of economic standards of life 232 00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:05.039 for the working population, that is a big, bad dilemma 233 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:08.519 to deal with. But when it comes to organizing and 234 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:12.320 to union work, the truth of it on the ground, 235 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:17.159 as established by scholarship and by good investigative journalism, is 236 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:23.559 that the grassroots voice is welcome as long as it 237 00:14:23.639 --> 00:14:28.080 doesn't question, you know, policy and that dictates that flow 238 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:33.159 from that. 239 00:14:28.679 --> 00:14:29.120 That that. 240 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:34.559 Land on these people from on high. Again, with apologies 241 00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:37.919 for a very unoriginal metaphor, but that is how it works, right. 242 00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:39.720 You need to toe the. 243 00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:43.200 Line by three D jobs. Mguil is referring to the 244 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:45.879 three d's he spoke about in Part one that define 245 00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:50.120 the conditions of many migrant work. Is that is dirty, dangerous, 246 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:50.840 and demeaning. 247 00:14:51.840 --> 00:14:54.000 Now, one of the things that the Chinese government is 248 00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:56.240 very good at, and this is not a sarcastic comment 249 00:14:57.159 --> 00:15:01.159 but a truly sincere comment, is to tread that very 250 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:08.559 fine line between allowing people to vent frustration, to discuss 251 00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:11.679 their situation, to reflect on it, to reflect on other 252 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:15.080 possible futures, etc. On the one hand, and a lot 253 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:17.480 of this is happening on social media, and prior to 254 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:19.960 social media, was happening in other places and continues to 255 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:22.919 do so right all kinds of in person settings as well, 256 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:27.639 of course, the fine line between allowing people to vent 257 00:15:27.919 --> 00:15:34.440 right on the one hand, and allowing them to actually organize, 258 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:39.919 to institutionalize networks, to build a budget, to develop leverage 259 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:43.360 in economic terms, to develop, for example, you know, effective 260 00:15:43.399 --> 00:15:47.320 mechanisms of going on strike. And if you look at 261 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:49.840 the records that are kept by the Chinese government and 262 00:15:49.879 --> 00:15:52.480 are actually in the public domain and often cited in 263 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:57.039 foreign media and scholarship as well, on labor unrest in China, 264 00:15:57.320 --> 00:16:00.919 you know we're talking about I think you know of thousands, 265 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:03.240 if not more, but I might have this number wrong, 266 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:06.120 but you know, it's a very high number of so 267 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:10.159 called incidents per year per annum, and these are documented. 268 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:13.000 This is, you know, people I don't know barricading a 269 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:19.399 police station because of local situation surrounding pollution or other issues. 270 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:22.480 So it's not as if there is no labor unrest, 271 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:28.639 but the moment that this comes close to seriously organized action, 272 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:32.000 that is when the state steps in. 273 00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:36.360 Migrant worker poetry is therefore an important grassroots voice depicting 274 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:40.360 the lives of precariously employed Chinese migron workers, but sometimes 275 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:43.000 gets lost when thinking about the night base. So they're 276 00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:45.799 not just important reports about the lives of real people. 277 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:47.879 They are also poems that need to be read as 278 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:50.440 works of art, and doing so force as a reader 279 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:52.840 to usk why and how we read about the working 280 00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:53.679 clas experience. 281 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:57.799 As soon as we start talking about, for example, working 282 00:16:57.840 --> 00:17:00.840 class writing, but then also a bit more broadly we 283 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:05.759 talk about, you know, subaltern writing or subaltern cultural production 284 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:08.920 and then sub alternity. You know, it can be a 285 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:12.200 working class background or working class conditions. It can also 286 00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:15.799 be being a woman. It can mean being gay, It 287 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:18.440 can mean having the wrong ethnicity in the place that 288 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.759 you're at right, I mean one that is not appreciated, 289 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:24.200 that is discriminated against, and so on and so forth, 290 00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:27.680 and so you get the prefixed literature, you get the 291 00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:32.000 literature that is called workers literature, you get the literature 292 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:36.799 that is called you know, women's literature, aboriginal literature, prisoner's literature, 293 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:41.559 queer literature, and so on. And then the question bounces 294 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:45.440 right back at you, and it can come from various quarters, right, 295 00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:47.240 it can come from left field or from where you've 296 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:52.119 expected it that says, okay, so it's this real literature, right, 297 00:17:52.240 --> 00:17:54.119 or do we need to prefix it and in order 298 00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:56.799 to justify it? We're only going to read this because 299 00:17:56.799 --> 00:17:59.000 it's about workers or buy workers or for workers or 300 00:17:59.039 --> 00:18:01.440 whatever we take an interest in the working class. Are 301 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:03.160 we only going to read it because we feel it's 302 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:05.759 important that women's emancipation happens and therefore we're going to 303 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:07.359 read this stuff. Or are we going to read it 304 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:10.960 because it is that particular thing that humans do. I mean, 305 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:14.440 they speak in various voices, and they use this very 306 00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:17.640 particular voice that we call literary. And there's something about 307 00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:20.759 this that does something to us, and sometimes we want 308 00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:23.599 to dance to it, or it makes us cry or laugh. 309 00:18:24.519 --> 00:18:26.920 And I don't think that debate is going to go away. 310 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.519 And I don't think that, for example, migrant worker poetry 311 00:18:30.839 --> 00:18:33.960 or working class literature at large, you know, never mind 312 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.519 the point about class, you know, the question of class formation. 313 00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:39.480 I don't think that they're going to fall on either 314 00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:43.200 side of the fence anytime soon. I think it needs 315 00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:46.960 sometimes a fairly aggressive, ongoing conversation of saying, can we 316 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:50.799 just sort of dislodge ourselves? And it really matters who 317 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:54.000 this we is? Right? Who are we referring to? Am 318 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:58.160 I referring to my academic environment? Am I talking about 319 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:01.160 a community that I'm somehow a part but also feel 320 00:19:01.240 --> 00:19:04.240 like I've been flown into, as in the Chinese poetry scene, 321 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.079 where I've been around for yeah, years and decades and 322 00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:10.799 people know me, but I'm a stranger and I leave again. 323 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:14.480 I'm the insider slash outsider thing, right, and ethnographers like 324 00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:18.200 to talk about, So who's the we that we're talking about? 325 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:21.920 Some of these issues around prefixes and insider outside of 326 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:24.680 status can be seen in the work of Mortau a 327 00:19:24.759 --> 00:19:27.559 pen name meaning grass on the grave, one of China's 328 00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:29.640 foremost LGBTQ poets. 329 00:19:29.960 --> 00:19:34.720 I've been in touch with morshow since twenty sixteen. He 330 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:36.759 wrote to me at one point when I was doing 331 00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:38.599 field work and I was kind of visible on social 332 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:42.200 media in China, and I'd known his work, but i'd 333 00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:44.559 never met him in person. Wonder he dropped me an email, 334 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:48.440 and it was actually fairly indignant, or it became indignant 335 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:52.119 as we proceeded to have had this exchange. And the 336 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.200 gist of it was, so you think you're doing research 337 00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:58.599 on battle of poetry, migrant worker poetry, but you know, 338 00:19:58.920 --> 00:20:01.720 you haven't really looked at my stuff, and I'm a 339 00:20:01.799 --> 00:20:05.880 migrant worker poet, and you know, everybody calls me something else, 340 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:09.000 and you know, in everybody else's defense, I should note 341 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:10.960 here that Muta had a website in the colors of 342 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:13.000 the rainbow flag for a number of years, so you know, 343 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:17.039 you get pigeonholed. It happens, right, But his point is 344 00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:21.720 really valid around the year two thousand, when this stuff 345 00:20:21.799 --> 00:20:26.359 was really still beginning to happen. He actually has poetry 346 00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:30.240 in those unofficial journals that is, you know, has titles 347 00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:33.400 like what It's like to be a battler, right, or 348 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:36.440 a migrant worker pre carrier's worker. This dug this Chinese 349 00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:39.400 work that we've been circling for a while. So he 350 00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:41.000 should get this recognition. 351 00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:44.440 Despite being a migrant worker who writes poetry about the 352 00:20:44.440 --> 00:20:49.759 migrant worker experience, Mutau is rarely considered a migrant worker poet. Rather, 353 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:52.920 it's his sexuality that takes precedence and how people define 354 00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:56.400 his work. Motau demonstrates how some groups come to be 355 00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.519 left out, how people think about who the working class is, 356 00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:02.720 the fact that his experience of his sexuality is in 357 00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:05.119 separate from his experience of class. 358 00:21:05.799 --> 00:21:09.160 Now, Moutol was born in the nineteen seventies in Khunan, 359 00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:12.160 which is one of these provinces that supply a large 360 00:21:12.519 --> 00:21:17.720 proportion of the migrant workers in contemporary China. And you know, 361 00:21:17.799 --> 00:21:21.640 he went out to work, I think, as his sisters did, 362 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:29.400 and had a fairly shocking story before then of his 363 00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:33.920 life at school in a very repressive school system, where 364 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:37.480 he ended up, you know, having a conflict with a teacher. 365 00:21:37.480 --> 00:21:41.039 And now that's kind of a big thing in certainly 366 00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:44.599 a rural educational environment in China. It was actually hard 367 00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:46.759 for me to imagine that a pupil could have a 368 00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:50.279 conflict with a teacher, which may have been naive on 369 00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:53.680 my part, but what I've read about that sort of 370 00:21:53.680 --> 00:21:55.599 thing and Also, what I've heard from him kind of 371 00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:58.720 explains this idea of well, it doesn't really happen because 372 00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.440 education is right very tightly in rural context like that, 373 00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:04.559 and it's not as if you have any right to 374 00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:07.119 even speak up. But apparently he did. So there was 375 00:22:07.160 --> 00:22:09.880 this conflict with a teacher. It was a long running conflict. 376 00:22:10.519 --> 00:22:14.599 Parents got involved, asked him to apologize, the school asked 377 00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:17.279 him to apologize. He refused to apologize. He was kicked out. 378 00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:21.440 So that was the beginning of the working life. This 379 00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:24.880 was when he was about fifteen. He came also, you know, 380 00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:30.079 from a broken home, substance abuse and other things, violence, 381 00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:34.119 and so he started making a building a life of 382 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:37.440 his own as a migrant worker, basically as a precarious 383 00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:40.440 worker at the very very very bottom of the food chain. 384 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:44.079 And then one point, you know, he got involved with 385 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:46.480 somebody who said, I'm going to take you along. There's 386 00:22:46.519 --> 00:22:48.079 this place I want to take you to. So, you know, 387 00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:50.400 this person took him to a park I think in Dondola, 388 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:55.000 Provincial capital. And I'm just simply quoting from an interview 389 00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:59.559 I did with Mortar during field work and said, so 390 00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:02.319 he said, yeah, and he explained to me what homosexuality was, 391 00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:05.720 and all of a sudden everything made sense, and I 392 00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:09.000 realized I was gay. And he said this to me 393 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:12.119 in a very matter of fact tone during the interview, 394 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:17.119 and I was wondering how this worked for him, and 395 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:19.799 how he could kind of say this in this way 396 00:23:19.880 --> 00:23:23.079 in the light of his life story in which he 397 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:27.039 had not known about this thing. And the first introduction 398 00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:29.640 to it was a place where you know, people went cruising, 399 00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:32.960 right where you'd meet other homosexuals, and all of this 400 00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:35.079 was on the sly because this was not meant to 401 00:23:35.079 --> 00:23:38.799