Interviewee: Huang Ancai (Hubei Baokang)
Recorder: Waves of History
On the fifteenth day of the first month, the Lunar Lantern Festival, I had to take a car to Datong, there was no way, we were going to start work on the sixteenth day of the first month of the mine, although it was the Lantern Festival, but I couldn't ask for leave, there were only 28 days in February, and I had to deduct more than 500 yuan for a day off, and I couldn't afford it. Besides, our mine work is not the same as in the southern factory, as long as you are a laborer, if I don't go to work on time, my job may be taken away by someone else. So, even though I had ten thousand reluctant to leave home, I had to go.
Interviewee: Huang Ancai
On the train, I remembered how far my young child chased me, and my heart was so sour, I really wanted to stay with them more, but the burden of life had to be picked up by me. But at home, I can't do business, I don't have any savings at home, I don't have any skills, so I have to come here to mine, here the wages are high, although the labor task is heavy, but when I think of the children in the family, I think it is worth the pain and tiredness.
The mountains of Baokang
My hometown is Damu Village in Baokang County, where the mountains are high, the valleys are deep, the land is barren, it has always belonged to one of the poorest counties in the country, before liberation until the 1960s and 1970s, the people in our hometown have not eaten enough, and now people often say that eating bark and digging grass roots is very common in our place. Over the years, the policies have been good, the lives of families have been greatly improved, many families have built new houses, some have bought cars, and every production team has been connected to cement roads, and the transportation is much more convenient. At the same time, young people in their hometowns are going out to work, there are not many people over the age of 60 in the village, and everyone is going out looking for money.
I'm fifty-one years old, and I'm not as strong as I used to be, but I still have to go out and work to earn money. I've done a lot of work before, I've worked as a construction worker, I've worked as a truck driver, I've worked as a porter in cement factories, but the wages in those places are so low that I came to the mines after 2012. The advantage of the mine is that as long as there is work, the wages are relatively high, working in the open air for a shift of about 400 yuan, and the wages in the mine are higher, about 500 yuan a day. I kept going down the well, there was no way, although it was more dangerous, but the salary was higher. At my age, if I don't take advantage of these years to make some money, I won't have a place to find money in a few years.
The protagonist's home
I have three children, the eldest son has graduated from vocational school, is now working as an operator in an electronics factory in the South, has not saved much money in a year, is 29 years old, and has not even found a girlfriend. The conditions in our family are poor, there is no building, there is no car, this condition is very rare to give my son a daughter-in-law. So while I'm still able to move, I'll earn more money for my son to marry his daughter-in-law in the future. The second girl was already married, but she married far away, married to Guangxi, and only returned home once in a few years, and the second girl's own life was not rich, so it was unlikely that she would get a little financial support from there. The third daughter is only 7 years old this year, the first grade of primary school, very smart, that is my warmest little cotton jacket, yesterday when I walked from home she chased a long distance, see her unwilling face and "Daddy, Daddy" shouts make me really can't bear to leave, I want to stay a few days to have fun with her, but unfortunately I can't, I have to come to the mine on time to work.
Huang Ancai's 7-year-old daughter
I myself have eaten everything, when I was a child, hunger was a common thing, and I did all the heavy work and tiring work, so I didn't have any life pursuits myself. My biggest wish now is to stay in good shape, not to get sick, not to be trampled to death in the mine, and to work for another 8 or 9 years, so that then I can save about 500,000, and with this 500,000, I can build a house and finish my little daughter's books. When my little daughter graduated, I was relaxed, I would raise a few cows, raise a few, make some small crops, and there should be no problem in maintaining my own survival.
The eldest son is my heart disease, when he was studying, he did not study well, he spent a lot of money in the vocational school for a few years, he did not learn a skill for so many years, he could only earn three or four thousand dollars a day on the assembly line to earn a dead wage, twenty or thirty has not talked about his girlfriend, I am very worried that he will play bare sticks all his life. But I can't do anything about his marriage, and we can't find this kind of condition in the local area, and if we look for it in other places, we must also look at his own creation. Every time he came home for the New Year, he was lying in bed playing with his phone, not going to relatives, not going to parties, and no friends looking for him to drink and drink, and I saw that he was very depressed every day. But I don't dare to talk about him, he doesn't listen to him, he says he's anxious with you, more powerful than you, so now I don't say him, let him go, I can't do much to help him.
Seven or eight of our village laborers have died in the mines over the years, and I'm lucky that nothing has happened to my mine. I hope there will never be an accident so that I can live a few more years and make more money for my family. Of course, sometimes thinking about the conditions at home, I even think that dying in the mine is not a loss, a few years ago a person who died in the mine can lose more than 200,000, more than 300,000, more than 400,000, and in the past two years, a person who dies can lose 600,000 to 800,000. If I were to trade my life for 800,000, I hope it would be after the age of 55.
Brother Huang's expression has always been very relaxed when he said these words, in his opinion, the heavy labor and the potential danger of death are not terrible. He's more worried about whether he can make more money in his lifetime to do something for future generations. I've been thinking about this question: How many days has a person like Big Brother Huang been blessed in his life? He's made so much money in his life, but how many times has he spent it for himself? Can he really save 500,000 yuan after a lifetime of hard work? Even if he saves 500,000, will his later life improve? He even thought about exchanging his life for hundreds of thousands of yuan, did he really think that 800,000 yuan was more important than his own life? Who did he live for in his life?
It's a fast-growing society, and it's also an increasingly fragmented society, with different classes, different people with different stories. Some people have a good life and are on the starting line of life winners from birth; some people can only struggle on the lifeline all their lives. I am also a migrant worker, and when I have the opportunity, I will record the people and things I come into contact with on a daily basis. After reading this article, please write down your feelings.