WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:03.080 Welcome back to part two of our series on Chinese 2 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:06.080 migrant work of poetry. If you haven't listened to part 3 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:08.359 one yet, I suggest you go back. I listened to 4 00:00:08.359 --> 00:00:09.080 that one first. 5 00:00:26.679 --> 00:00:33.520 You got twenty ladders, Shobo can Dolos, Young Dollar Dods. 6 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.159 Before we get started, just a quick reminder that our 7 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:39.399 podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our 8 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:42.399 supports fund our work and in return get exclusive early 9 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:46.520 access to podcast episodes, add three episodes, bonus episodes, free 10 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:50.640 and discounted merchandise, and other content. For example, our Patroon 11 00:00:50.679 --> 00:00:53.479 supporters can listen to all three parts of this series now, 12 00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:56.960 as well as an exclusive Patreon only bonus episode that 13 00:00:57.039 --> 00:00:59.560 goes into more detail about the migrant work at home. 14 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:02.840 Some of the writers that we discuss and their influences 15 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:05.879 join us or find out more at patreon dot com 16 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:09.640 slash working class history link in the show notes A 17 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.760 quick content note that this episode includes some mention of 18 00:01:12.799 --> 00:01:16.640 suicide and self harm. You might remember that this series 19 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:19.120 is being produced and presented with the help of friend 20 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:22.439 of the podcast, Jack Franco, so at this point we'll 21 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:33.280 hand back over to him. 22 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:34.680 One Zone Maka. 23 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.439 In our first episode, we discussed some of the difficulties 24 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:44.319 in classifying Chinese migrant worker poetry as writing that balances 25 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:49.280 personal history with political activism and social critique. In this episode, 26 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:51.959 we'll talk about how poetry in China is a social 27 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.560 practice and what that means, looking at a number of 28 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:57.959 migrant worker poets, including the life and work of shuley Jo, 29 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:01.680 one of the most significant in recent years. We'll also 30 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:04.159 take a trip to the Migrant Workers Home, a self 31 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.920 organized space run by in four migrant work is living 32 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.159 in the urban village of Piezsun on the outskirts of Beijing. 33 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:12.879 All of this relates to how poetry is an art 34 00:02:12.919 --> 00:02:16.479 form has been historically conceived in China, which Migheil Vancravelle, 35 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.840 professor of Chinese literature at Biden University in the Netherlands, explains. 36 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:22.520 Yeah, what can we expect of a Chinese poet through 37 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:26.719 the ages? That's a fantastic question you on the importance 38 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:31.159 of poetry in Chinese culture and society, and so, you know, 39 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:34.680 my first very cheeky answer would be, we can expect 40 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:39.400 everything from them. Why is this because poetry as a 41 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:43.520 social practice in China was basically, especially in an antiquity 42 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:45.759 and sort of you know, the Imperial time set up 43 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:49.400 to the twentieth century, but continuing today in fact, is 44 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:53.639 a very occasional art, right, And this is not in 45 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:58.080 any sense a pejorative thing, to say, parting with a friend, 46 00:02:58.120 --> 00:03:01.080 I'm going to write a poem, you know, visiting a 47 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:03.879 far away friend, I'm going to write a poem. Getting 48 00:03:03.919 --> 00:03:06.680 a new job, I might write a poem. My daughter 49 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:10.439 graduating from high school, I might write a poem, and 50 00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:14.759 so on and so forth. And so this is a 51 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:20.280 way of perhaps indicating how ubiquitous poetry is in Chinese society. 52 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:24.759 It's entirely normal for Chinese children, and yes we're talking 53 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:27.360 about a cultural elite, but are fairly large also in 54 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:31.960 percentage numbers cultural elite for their children to learn by 55 00:03:32.039 --> 00:03:36.960 heart several hundreds of famous poems from the Imperial era. 56 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.599 Magill is clear the poetry plays a far wider role 57 00:03:40.639 --> 00:03:43.159 in Chinese society than we might be used to in 58 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:47.400 other countries. But China's poetic tradition also goes far beyond 59 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:49.319 just being an occasional art. 60 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:53.520 You know, poetry is an industry. Poetry is a sort 61 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:58.199 of very thriving, bubbly thing in China. Culturally hugely important, 62 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:02.159 and then the notion of industry and sort of appropriating 63 00:04:02.199 --> 00:04:04.479 that to reflect on migrant worker poetry, even though it 64 00:04:04.520 --> 00:04:08.240 holds for the larger picture. That is a very instructive 65 00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:11.240 way of looking at it. Now, going back to the 66 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:14.120 more set of culturally specific Chinese situation, what can we 67 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:17.480 expect of a Chinese poet if I'm going to try 68 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:20.519 and be less universal about that, I might say things 69 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:23.959 like speaking truth to power. I might say things like 70 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:28.720 lament for the suffering of the common folk, to which 71 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:31.639 the poet very definitely doesn't belong because they're part of 72 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:36.319 a cultural elite. So, you know, some of China's most 73 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:41.079 famous poets, Douful among them, are famous for just that right, 74 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:45.000 are famous for their ability to write about the horrors 75 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:49.160 of war, even as or perhaps especially as they found 76 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:52.639 themselves in a relatively privileged position in that they survived, 77 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:55.439 in that they had the wherewithal to survive, to move 78 00:04:55.480 --> 00:04:59.959 around when that was necessary, et cetera, speaking truth to power. 79 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.560 So were, as an age old tradition, probably going back 80 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:05.600 to the person who's commonly seen as seat of the 81 00:05:05.639 --> 00:05:07.759 first archetypal. 82 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:11.800 Chinese poet, the poet Mcgil mentioned dufour is perhaps China's 83 00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:14.959 most important classical poet during the Golden Age of the 84 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.279 Tungu dynasty in the eighth century. He was a civil servant, 85 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:21.120 as was expected of his social class, but spent much 86 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:24.120 of his life on the road unsettled by war. But 87 00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:27.680 China's poetic tradition was just as rich in the twentieth century. 88 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:31.639 Then you've got People's Republic of China, orthodox high socialist 89 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:34.920 poets like Ujinshu, who wrote the Song of Lei Fung, 90 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:39.920 which is basically a totally utopian Maoist ideal of the 91 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:45.439 new Chinese person who consists mostly of self sacrifice, you know. 92 00:05:45.519 --> 00:05:48.120 But then you might also find people in Guiyang and 93 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:52.079 in Beijing in the late seventies, when underground literature were 94 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:56.560 sort of about to surface after the Cultural Revolution, posting 95 00:05:57.079 --> 00:06:01.720 their poetry, pasting it actually literally the Guyang Troop in 96 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:05.439 nineteen seventy eight, just after you know, when the mausoleam 97 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:08.839 for Maltzadum was being erected in the same Tieneman Square 98 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:13.000 that we've seen rica in Chinese history, pasting their poetry 99 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:15.279 on the walls of the building site there. A couple 100 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:18.879 of months later, the group in Beijing, pasting their poetry 101 00:06:19.279 --> 00:06:22.439 on you know, city walls in various places in Beijing. 102 00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:27.160 So that is still a very political undertaking, even as 103 00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.920 these people were saying, we are reclaiming poetry to be 104 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.600 an individual thing, to be a cultural thing, to not 105 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:36.480 just be politics. Then you could move on to Yindi 106 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:39.360 Twan and the Lower Body Poetry group around the year 107 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:44.920 two thousand, totally irreverent, fearless, you know, not interested in politics, 108 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:52.600 writing about heroin junkies in Beijing, right, sex workers, that 109 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:56.360 sort of thing, crashing through all kinds of taboos on 110 00:06:56.439 --> 00:07:01.199 the cultural scene, being hated and misunderstood by everybody and 111 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:04.199 their brother. And then you could turn to migrant worker 112 00:07:04.279 --> 00:07:08.279 poetry and still talk about poetry as a social practice 113 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:10.480 in China. So that really drives it home. Right, You 114 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:13.600 see this, the muchness of it, the complexity of it, 115 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:16.800 the diversity of it. And that's why I'm not ashamed 116 00:07:16.839 --> 00:07:19.399 of that metaphor of poetry being part of the cultural 117 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:20.480 DNA of China. 118 00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:24.360 This idea of poetry that speaks truth to power, that 119 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:28.680 depicts experiences of exploitation and justice are themes that link 120 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:32.120 today's migrant work is to China's poetic tradition, such as 121 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:35.120 the Book of Songs, whose earliest works are as much 122 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:36.839 as three thousand years old. 123 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:39.600 Now, if you're going to situate this migrant work of 124 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:44.199 poetry going back into Chinese cultural history, then I've seen 125 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:48.560 people and people that I respect who will claim with 126 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:52.000 some justification that there is in fact, very direct linkage 127 00:07:52.079 --> 00:07:55.800 to the Book of Songs, the Book of Odes, this collection, 128 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:00.199 this anthology of songs that are allegedly come from the 129 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:02.600 common folk. Of course, you need to sort of think about, well, 130 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:05.680 how exactly did they come from the common folk? If 131 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:10.399 the common folk at that particular time probably was illiterate, right, 132 00:08:10.839 --> 00:08:13.319 so how did that happen? And then very interestingly we 133 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:18.240 find the notion of poem gatherers who were officials at 134 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:21.600 the court, who would go sort of among the people 135 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:24.480 to gather these texts, to find out what people were 136 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:27.360 talking about, and perhaps also to actually gather these folk songs. 137 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:31.279 And then you know, this linkage is established between that 138 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:36.000 poetry of the common folk lamenting the horrors of war, 139 00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:43.240 lamenting the horrors of you know, famished existence, the lamenting poverty, sadness, sorrow, 140 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:47.320 impotence in the face of greater powers than yourself, be 141 00:08:47.399 --> 00:08:52.440 they political, be they natural, be they whatever. And I 142 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:54.519 can see why. And at the same time, what I 143 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:58.200 see is that that linkage is being romanticized, right so 144 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:02.399 great here today we have an incarnation of something that 145 00:09:02.519 --> 00:09:04.840 is part and parcel of our culture and that now 146 00:09:04.879 --> 00:09:09.039 speaks back to us about the post socialist era. Well, yes, 147 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:11.720 it's debatable, to say the least, but I can see 148 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:15.200 the connection, and yeah, I think it is justified. But 149 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:16.720 it comes with a couple of question marks. 150 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:21.399 What mcguil mentions here in relation to famished existences, sorrow 151 00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:24.559 and impotence in the face of greater powers is evident 152 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:27.159 in the lives of many migrant worker poets and migrant 153 00:09:27.159 --> 00:09:31.240 workers more generally. Shuli Ju is one such poet who 154 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:34.759 dealt with these themes. Like Juan Xiao, cheng Chu was 155 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:37.279 also a worker from a rural family who went to 156 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:41.120 work on the assembly lines. Conditions at Fox Gone in Shunjun, 157 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:43.519 where she worked, were so grueling that they led to 158 00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:46.320 a space of suicides in the twenty tens, with a 159 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:50.600 dozen workers dying by suicide in twenty ten alone. In 160 00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:53.759 twenty fourteen, just a few days after he had signed 161 00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:57.000 a new fox gone contract, Schu would join them, taking 162 00:09:57.039 --> 00:10:00.919 his own life by jumping off a building. Here Magueil 163 00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:05.919 reads his translation of I speak of blood by shulido, I. 164 00:10:05.879 --> 00:10:10.279 Speak of blood. I speak of blood, for I have 165 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:14.600 no choice. I preferred to chat about the wind, the flowers, 166 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:18.360 the snow, the moon, about dynasties of old and the 167 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:24.840 classical poetry found in spirits. But reality means I can 168 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:30.320 only speak of blood. Blood with its source in rented 169 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:38.360 rooms like matchboxes, narrow, cramped, sunless, the year round, squeezing 170 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:43.360 in the battler boys and battler girls, wives gone astray, 171 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:48.879 and husbands far from home, Guys from Setuan hawking spicy soup, 172 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:54.120 old people from Hunan selling trinkets on street side, blankets, 173 00:10:54.440 --> 00:10:59.320 and then me toiling all day to survive and opening 174 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:03.440 my eyes to write poetry. I speak to you of 175 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:08.080 these people. I speak of us, ants struggling through the 176 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:12.000 swamp of life, one by one, drops of blood walking 177 00:11:12.039 --> 00:11:16.480 the battler's road, one by one, blood chased away by 178 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:21.799 city guards or wrung out by machines, scattering, insomnia, disease, 179 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:28.279 job loss, suicide along the way, words exploding one by 180 00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:31.679 one in the pearl river delta in the belly of 181 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:36.519 the Motherland, dissected by reams of paperwork like sebuku blades. 182 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:40.600 I speak of all this to you, and even as 183 00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:44.840 my voice grows hoarse and my tongue breaks off, I 184 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.679 will tear through the silence of this era. I speak 185 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:53.080 of blood, and the sky will shadder. I speak of blood, 186 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.080 and my mouth turns bright red. 187 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:02.559 Truly do explicitly links and to China's literary heritage. But 188 00:12:02.679 --> 00:12:05.559 in contrast to the scholars that mcgil mentioned earlier who 189 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:09.759 link migrant worker poets to their classical predecessors, Choo's reality 190 00:12:10.120 --> 00:12:12.519 means he is unable to speak in the terms of 191 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:16.360 that poetry. He would prefer to draw more classical motifs 192 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:19.600 of wind flowers in the moon, but as he says, 193 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:22.960 he has no choice. He can only speak of blood, 194 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:26.320 which itself symbolizes the struggles of migrant work of life. 195 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:29.200 Not to mention that blood is not even just symbolic, 196 00:12:29.720 --> 00:12:32.840 but also a literal part of the violence they experience. 197 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:36.879 So I'm sort of trying to play a trick on 198 00:12:36.919 --> 00:12:39.559 you here, because what I'm about to say about Hugh 199 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:47.039 Leeds really somehow doesn't totally match this poem. What is 200 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:49.039 this poem? This poem is an angry poem. It's a 201 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:53.120 political poem. Not politically sensitive in the sense of saying, 202 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:55.679 you know, I rise up and revolt and let's overthrow 203 00:12:55.720 --> 00:12:59.360 the government whatever, none of that. But it's political in 204 00:12:59.399 --> 00:13:03.759 the description of shall we call them asymmetrical power relations? 205 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:07.919 Shall we call it inequality? That sort of thing. It's heartrending, 206 00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:14.000 it's angry, right, And the reason that I didn't want 207 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:16.399 to read it, even though I have a picture of 208 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:19.360 this poet she leads that is a bit more complex 209 00:13:19.840 --> 00:13:22.480 than a straightforward kind of you know, mapping of the 210 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:27.399 experience onto the poetry, onto the literary representation is the 211 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:31.480 way that he has been read, you know, the image 212 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:35.559 of she leaves it has been taken by many people 213 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:41.320 as a straightforward miniature for the story of migrant worker literature, 214 00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:44.879 migrant worker poetry in China, and I think that is 215 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:49.120 just a little too easy. But I get it. I 216 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:52.840 understand how this has happened, and for that, we need 217 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:55.840 to look at his life, and we need to look 218 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:00.600 at what people like to read about and good his life. 219 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:04.000 We see a young man in Guangdong Province, So actually 220 00:14:04.039 --> 00:14:06.559 in the Pearl River Delta well more or less, you know, 221 00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:10.639 in that same province, already growing up in a rural area, 222 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:14.080 being a kid that loved going to school from a 223 00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:16.960 very young age. His elder brother at one point said, 224 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:20.240 you know, something to the effect of, she leads to 225 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:23.240 really not being suited to rural life, to growing up 226 00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:27.320 as a farmer, trying to make his way to the city, 227 00:14:27.480 --> 00:14:29.360 having to make his way to the city. He completed 228 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:32.159 high school, but then you know, needed to go out 229 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:34.519 and sort of get out there and start making money, 230 00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:37.159 but also seeing this as an opportunity because what he 231 00:14:37.240 --> 00:14:40.399 wanted was a job in a library. What he wanted 232 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:42.519 was to be a writer, was to you know, somehow 233 00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:47.080 have a connection with literature, a bookstore perhaps, But what 234 00:14:47.159 --> 00:14:52.600 he got was an assembly line job at Foxcn, which is, 235 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:58.519 you know, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company, Taiwanese headquartered with 236 00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:02.200 most of its plan manufacturing plants in mainland China, and 237 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:06.080 fox Conn has become sort of the epitome of the 238 00:15:06.159 --> 00:15:10.639 cruel labor regime that comes with that kind of organization, 239 00:15:10.759 --> 00:15:14.639 including the well known fox Conn suicides. And this is when, 240 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:18.440 especially in the twenty tens, employees at fox Conn started 241 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:21.519 killing themselves in large enough numbers to be noticed, and 242 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:27.360 doing this in ways that were noticed as embodied protest, 243 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:31.639 if you will. That's a very academic way of putting it. Basically, 244 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:33.799 sort of jumping off of a high building in order 245 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:37.080 to make a point, right, even if that's the end 246 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:44.279 of your life, and shooting true. Jumped off of the ledge, 247 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:49.360 the ledge of a seventeenth floor window in a high 248 00:15:49.480 --> 00:15:52.080 rise close to the Fox Kong plant where he was 249 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.440 employed at the tender age of twenty four. So he 250 00:15:54.480 --> 00:15:56.960 lived from nineteen ninety to twenty fourteen and that was it. 251 00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:02.279 And when he did this, there was this explosion of publicity. 252 00:16:02.320 --> 00:16:07.679 It was unimaginable. First in China, so the Sinton Evening 253 00:16:07.799 --> 00:16:14.600 News had a full page on this, otherwise totally nondescript, 254 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:21.639 you know, regular run of the mill, powerless person. And yes, 255 00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:24.919 this was because he was a poet. The world over, 256 00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:27.559 in China, no different than anywhere else, people have been 257 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:31.240 fascinated by the death of the capital p poet right 258 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:35.159 or the artist capital a artist, preferably by their own hand, 259 00:16:35.879 --> 00:16:39.120 and preferably at a young age. Right. There's a romantic, 260 00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:42.399 romantic ideal that is incredibly powerful, that has not gone away. 261 00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:45.879 That that just makes us, and I mean a very 262 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:50.799 diverse and varied audience, including you know, totally untrained readers, 263 00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:54.879 highly professional readers, and everything else, you know, get really 264 00:16:54.919 --> 00:16:56.919 excited about the death of the poet or the death 265 00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:58.679 of the artist. And I think in this case what 266 00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:02.240 happened because we've seen hullabaloo about the death of the 267 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:05.319 poet in China in other cases, but this was way 268 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:08.720 bigger also internationally, and that's because there was a third 269 00:17:08.759 --> 00:17:12.920 element that came in, and that is, we have a suicide, 270 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:15.759 we have a poet slash artist, but we also have 271 00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:20.839 this figure of the migrant worker, of the subaltern subject, 272 00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:24.759 of the precarious worker, of the person who's at the 273 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:28.839 very bottom of the global capitalist food chain. Of the 274 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:35.000 romanticizable but also sort of scarily feel good image of 275 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:38.079 these people wearing yellow helmets and they look like ants 276 00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:40.279 because the picture is one of a building site that 277 00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:44.559 is the size of you know, two railway stations, or 278 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:49.319 these people again quote unquote shackled but actually sometimes almost 279 00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:55.559 physically shackled to the assembly line, wearing these uniformizing sterile suits, right, 280 00:17:55.599 --> 00:17:59.160 the anti dust stuff because the iPhones and the iPads 281 00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:01.880 that you're putting together in the fox confactory, we kind 282 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:04.599 of any dust in there, so that the workshop's probably 283 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:09.440 been conditioned, etc. And so these three things together, A 284 00:18:09.480 --> 00:18:12.759 suicide by a young person who was a poet or artist. 285 00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:15.279 He had a blog, right, he publishes poetry on a blog, 286 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:20.839 wasn't widely recognized during his lifetime. And then third, this 287 00:18:21.079 --> 00:18:25.200 increasingly visible person, increasingly visible in China but also in 288 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:27.599 the world at large, of the migrant worker. 289 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:30.880 Mcgeil sees his poem as a challenge to the mainstream 290 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:33.519 image that has been created of Shuleja after his death 291 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:37.240 in twenty fourteen. That goes beyond both the romantic ideal 292 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:40.119 of the suffering poet or a simple look into the 293 00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:42.759 life of three hundred million migrant workers. 294 00:18:43.079 --> 00:18:47.160 What I find noteworthy and in a way tragic, is that, 295 00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:50.160 you know, his story has been turned into this straightforward 296 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:54.039 miniature of the migrant worker story. But actually, if you 297 00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:58.160 read the collected works right, which were put together after 298 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:01.319 his death, if he hadn't killed them, this wouldn't have happened. Right. 299 00:19:01.400 --> 00:19:04.839 It's not a cynical comment, it's just an observation. So 300 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:07.960 you know, I read the collected works, what about two 301 00:19:08.039 --> 00:19:11.720 hundred and fifty pages of poetry a young man, and 302 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:15.400 you see that there is a very large component in 303 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:18.680 this poetry that is not at all to do with 304 00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:22.160 socio political issues, That is not to do with activism, 305 00:19:22.200 --> 00:19:24.640 not to do with anger over the way society treats 306 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:28.279 the migrant workers. But that is pretty straightforward, you know, 307 00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:33.200 good clean, existential angst. He has a poem about self 308 00:19:33.240 --> 00:19:39.599 harm that is totally grueling, and the external forces, so 309 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:42.960 to speak, that we might want to mobilize to explain 310 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:46.559 his bit of fate. And nowhere in sight in this poem, 311 00:19:46.920 --> 00:19:49.599 whereas in the poem by johnsil Chool or in this 312 00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:52.279 poem I speak of blood by Sue leads to himself. Yes, 313 00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:55.440 they are insight, these things are visible. We can see 314 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.079 that this is about power relations in society, that it's 315 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:01.720 about inequality. And that makes it a bit hard for 316 00:20:01.759 --> 00:20:04.079 me to accept that shoe leavesa has become this sort 317 00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:07.720 of token, this emblem of the migrant workers' story, because 318 00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:10.480 I think it doesn't do him justice as a poet 319 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:15.039 or as a human being, and it risks kind of 320 00:20:15.319 --> 00:20:19.319 homogenizing that picture to the point where it doesn't really 321 00:20:19.839 --> 00:20:23.359 teaches anything, and it actually essentializes these people. 322 00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:28.200 Despite the intrinsically isolating nature of precarious migrant labor and 323 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:31.359 their risky legal status, migrant workers are still able to 324 00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:35.359 self organize and forge networks of solidarity. Jung Siau Chong 325 00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:38.400 dedicated a poem to a twenty sixteen protest when one 326 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:41.920 hundred migrant workers camped out in Abaging underpass to demand 327 00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:45.200 unpaid wages. You can find a mini documentary about the 328 00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:48.440 protest with a reading of Jung's poem Needing Workers demanding 329 00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:52.000 their pay in the show notes. In the poem, Jung 330 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:57.240 writes about the workers. They're constantly put together arranged into 331 00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:01.920 an electronics factory ants nest, a toy factory honeycluon the 332 00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:04.599 existence of these high concentrations of work is in these 333 00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:08.160 ants Nest and honeyclumbs also creates a possibility for bonds 334 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.920 of solidarity. Migrant workers are far from passive victims, and 335 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:14.720 one example of this resistance is that migrant work is 336 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:16.119 home in Pizson Beiching. 337 00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:19.640 If we're looking at migrant worker poetry and at the 338 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:25.160 community building that happens around it, then the migrant worker 339 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:31.200 home in Piton, which is a village on the outskirts 340 00:21:31.240 --> 00:21:34.960 of Beijing to the northeast. It's actually an example of 341 00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:39.680 this quote unquote village in the city phenomenon where people 342 00:21:40.119 --> 00:21:43.000 started living because the rents were affordable and they could 343 00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:46.720 commute into the city to do their work. And the 344 00:21:46.759 --> 00:21:51.359 population in a small number of years grew from something 345 00:21:51.519 --> 00:21:55.720 like two thousand to thirty thousand or thereabouts, so you know, 346 00:21:56.279 --> 00:21:59.720 a factor ten or fifteen something like that. Now, the 347 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:05.400 Migrant Workers' Home in Pieton is an NGO that makes 348 00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:11.680 it its business to emancipate precarious workers, many of them 349 00:22:11.720 --> 00:22:15.319 migrant workers, but it also includes people who sort of 350 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:17.920 you know, were laid off from state factories whatever. It's 351 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:20.160 not necessarily just migrant workers, but many of them are 352 00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:24.119 migrant workers. And it was founded by a small number 353 00:22:24.119 --> 00:22:27.240 of people who were actually migrant workers that came to 354 00:22:27.400 --> 00:22:32.000 Beijing in the late nineteen nineties with high hopes of 355 00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:37.200 making it as artists, as musicians, as stand up comedians 356 00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:40.720 in the Chinese variety of a Chinese variety of that 357 00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:45.200 particular art form, and like many other people, they found 358 00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:49.119 their hopes frustrated and they didn't quite make it as 359 00:22:49.319 --> 00:22:52.799 artists and entertainers and found themselves doing precarious labor, but 360 00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:57.279 stuck together and ended up working together through connections with 361 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:00.279 a bunch of people sometimes referred to as the new Lets, 362 00:23:00.440 --> 00:23:07.440 especially academics and other authors who have a particular political positions. 363 00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:09.480 So now we're talking about, you know, two decades ago, 364 00:23:09.559 --> 00:23:12.960 when China was more or less clearly heading in the 365 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:17.039 direction of a much more capitalist and open vision of 366 00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:20.759 the world than it has today under Shijimping. So these 367 00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:24.960 new left intellectuals kind of teamed up with these migrant 368 00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:29.119 workers and with other organizations that were emerging, for example, 369 00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:31.680 for the protection of the rights of female migrant workers 370 00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:35.519 at the time, and founded this ango. And the thing 371 00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:40.039 that distinguishes them from many other organizations that work for 372 00:23:40.039 --> 00:23:44.119 the emancipation of precarious workers and sometimes specifically migrant workers 373 00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:47.359 is that they try to do this through what they 374 00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:51.839 call cultural education. Are you in Chinese? And that is 375 00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:55.400 actually clear in the background of its founding members, who 376 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:57.519 were musicians and comedians. 377 00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:01.799 The Migrant Workers Home provides concrete material helped to its population, 378 00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:05.519 such as free libraries, workers rights classes, or schooling for 379 00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:08.680 the children of migrant workers who as we mentioned in 380 00:24:08.759 --> 00:24:11.799 part one, aren't allowed to attend local state schools as 381 00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:15.599 they don't have the correct urban household registration status. But 382 00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.319 its main mission is developing a rich cultural life for 383 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:21.759 migrant workers. As it says in the Homes mission statement, 384 00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:25.359 Without our culture, we have no history. Without a history, 385 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:28.720 we have no future. So, for instance, the intro song 386 00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:31.039 you've been hearing in this series is why the Migrant 387 00:24:31.079 --> 00:24:34.440 Work at Homes New Labor Art Troupe far from being 388 00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:38.240 a Blairite tribute band, its members are all former migrant workers, 389 00:24:38.359 --> 00:24:41.480 like the singer Lulan, who came from Shandong Province to 390 00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:43.759 work in the coal mines. You can find a link 391 00:24:43.799 --> 00:24:45.759 to a short documentary about the art troup on the 392 00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:48.119 web page for this episode. The link is in the 393 00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:52.599 show notes. In twenty fourteen, the Migrant Workers' Home set 394 00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:55.680 up the Pizzon Literature Group and began publishing its own 395 00:24:55.799 --> 00:24:56.640 literary journal. 396 00:24:57.119 --> 00:25:01.400 How this group works is one of the you know, 397 00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:05.200 core people at the home. The manager called Chalfour or 398 00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:10.000 for cho Un. She realized that people wanted this, that 399 00:25:10.039 --> 00:25:13.519 people were interested in literature and wanted to try and 400 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:16.279 write themselves, and just you know, wanted to learn. Basically 401 00:25:16.359 --> 00:25:19.880