In China, these young women (and men) are “rural migrants”. Over the course of two years she follows two young women, Min and Chungming, who leave their rural villages - what is known as “going out” - in pursuit of a better life earning a regular wage in a factory. Instead, she wanted to concentrate on the workers and tell their stories. She says she didn’t want to write about the harsh conditions in the factories, because that had already been done. Chang, a Chinese American, wrote Factory Girls as a means of exploring these very questions. But what of the people who work in those factories? What sort of lives do they lead? How is China’s rise to power affecting them? It’s no exaggeration to say that practically every useful item that we buy in the West - for example, shoes, t-shirts, laptops and mobile phones - was made in a factory somewhere in China. Since the 1990s China has undergone rapid economic development. Non-fiction – Kindle edition Picador 320 pages 2010.
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