Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China | 
 enlarge | Author: Leslie T. Chang
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 6794
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.6
ISBN: 0385520174
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.40951
EAN: 9780385520171
ASIN: 0385520174
Publication Date: October 7, 2008
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China.
China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta.
As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family’s migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation.
A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America’s shores remade our own country a century ago.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
Just finished Factory Girls January 4, 2009
I just finished reading Factory Girls. It had received a 5 star rating in a magazine review and I thought it might be good. It really was. I am a big lover of Chinese movies, and thought this book would provide a background between the old and the new. It didn't disappoint. My only critical thing was, I wish it was published today, as there have been major changes since Leslie Chang wrote it...I wonder about the girls and how many factories have closeed, what has happened to their families who relied on their income etc.
Leslie, thank you for your work and hope to read something else from you in the near future. It was indeed, a good history lesson. However, I would have liked more detail about the Cultural Revolution. Thank you.
 Very engrossing reading on life in China December 10, 2008
I just finished reading "Factory Girls" by Leslie T. Chang. This book is by far the most fascinating book I ever read on life in China and its' factory workers. The author, Ms. Chang wrote an excellent thought provoking book. I literally could not put this book down, and found Mins and Chunmings lives quite unforgettable.
For people interested in Chinas' socio-economic, cultural, and it's history, go and buy this book. I give this book a five star rating!!
 if you only read one book about China, it should be this one. November 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As someone who lives in Beijing and has been part of the East Asian Studies scholastic community for years, I can honestly say that this book sums up everything my mountains of pretentious textbooks and Dashan-esque snooty white dudes have ever said about life in China. The book is long, as it should be, because there is so much to observe. The author's analysis is thoughtful, and never condescending or presumptuous. Her personal family history is so fascinating. Many reviews say it interrupts the rest of the book, but it doesn't feel that way to me. It provides a concrete historical background so that you see a snapshot of modern culture, then a digression to find out more about China's past. Her comments about various ironies of Chinese modern culture are spot-on but always kind. I would teach an entire course on this book, and it should certainly be required reading for any class on modern China, women in China, Chinese economics, etc. I haven't been this excited about a single book in a long time. Thank you Leslie T. Chang for writing this book!!!
Outstanding November 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoyed very much reading this book. I read the author's WSJ article long time ago, so I was eagerly waiting for this book to come out. The stories are very interesting yet poignant at the same time. These girls' ambitions, hard work, & constant desire for self-improvement put those Americans who take everything they have for granted to shame.
I admire the author's courageous effort in her research, following the girls to their factories, villages, and business meetings. Joining millions of migrants in the crazy Chinese New Year travel BY TRAIN & then BY BUS - is not for the ones with fainted hearts... TO live in the rural village with no heat in February (below freezing point weather)for TWO WEEKS - is not an easy task for someone who's American born, or even native Chinese from the northern part of China (where there is heat in winter). Mao in the old days arbitrarily decided that "north of the Yangze River is allowed to have heat in winter, south of it no need". What a tyrant!!
I gave the book 4-star instead of a 5-star only because:
1. I found the stories a bit choppy. I had a hard time tracking all the names & places & found myself flipping back to see who's whom. A clearer timeline might have been helpful.
2. I would like to see some pictures of Dongguan, factories, dorms, places where the author & girls have been to, and a detailed map perhaps, tracking each girl's job hopping steps. A picture is worth a thousand words. Author might want to set up a website with some additional information.
3. The author's own family history, while very touching to read, is somewhat distracting from the girls' stories, despite the author's effort of drawing the analogy of "her grandfather was just like these migrant girls by leaving their own village decades ago". I think that the author should've saved that material & write another book about it.
Overall, this is a great book, and kudos to Leslie for her hard work & incredible effort to make these girls' stories known. Bravo!
So glad someone finally wrote this book November 5, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Factory Girls is a non-fiction book written by an Chinese-American journalist. It focuses on the stories of girls who immigrate from rural Chinese villages to factories in more urban areas of China. The girls work in shoe factories, purse factories, factories that make one specific plastic piece for a larger item, and a lot of other factories, but their stories are all the same -- they left the village for better opportunities.
I'm glad that someone finally wrote a book like this. People in America like to focus on poor working conditions of factories in China, but what they don't realize is that a lot of the people working in those factories would rather work 14 hour days sitting in an assembly line and earning 10x the amount they make doing back-breaking work on a farm. The author does a great job showing the lives of these girls who leave their village without imparting any judgement on them or their bosses.
I enjoyed reading the stories of the handful of girls who worked at one factory, jumped to the next, jumped to another job, and so on, but I thought the author's own story of her family felt a bit tacked on. It made the book feel like it was trying to be two separate books. The author's story could have gone in a separate book about families affected by the Communist Revolution.
The book is easy to read. Even though the factory girls' stories started sounding similar toward the middle of the book (that was the point), it never felt like a chore to read. I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in the side of the story that doesn't usually get covered in western newspapers.
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