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How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

The Paper curated the "Ten Questions about Women's Friendly Cities", focusing on ten aspects of women's rights and interests in cities. This interview focuses on migrant women in the city, and interviews Qi Lixia, co-founder of Beijing Magnolia Blossom Social Work Service Center. Founded in 2010, Magnolia Blossom is a non-profit social service public welfare organization with the purpose of paying attention to, supporting and accompanying women who come to Beijing. Magnolia blossoms provide cultural, educational and spiritual services to working women and their children, and promote their integration into the urban life they are building. In the process, many migrant women have increased their awareness of independence and gender equality.

How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

Cartography The Paper Wang Luyao

Women at the grassroots level also have their own spiritual needs

The Paper: You once said that the original intention of establishing Magnolia Blossom came from a volunteer experience, can you talk about the scene at that time, the touch on you and the change of mentality? What made Magnolia Blossom come up with your original motivation?

Magnolia Lixia:

When I worked in the south, I worked on the assembly line, which was very monotonous and boring, and most of them were repetitive labor. But when I came out to work, I had some unrealistic fantasies, wanting to improve my economic life and change my life's destiny, such as writing articles and novels. I once read a book about a migrant girl, and she insisted on writing the stories of the workers around me, which had a great influence on me, so I also wanted to pay attention to the workers around me and pay attention to the stories of ordinary people.

When I came out, my children were three years old, unlike young people who came out to work as teenagers, their hands and feet were very flexible and they did things quickly, while I did not have long-term manual labor training, and I did things very slowly, and I would be looked down upon by managers or ridiculed by co-workers. Moving from the most basic employee to management is unrealistic and impossible for me. In terms of writing, I started out writing in a diary, but then I couldn't take care of myself after a long period of work, so the first two ideas were quickly shattered. People will be very depressed, feeling that they cannot see the day and cannot see the ideal.

Later, I participated in an event organized by a non-profit organization, which made me have a big change of thinking, I realized that the problems I faced were not my personal problems, many workers had to face them, the factory needed young bodies, flexible hands and feet, but did not want this group to have thoughts and ideas. Workers need to cooperate with the assembly line and be disciplined to do things according to their instructions. The individual can only be in a very depressed state here. Sharing our experiences in public welfare organizations, writing about our experiences, and popularizing the Labor Law has weakened my frustration.

The Paper: Why did you think about going north to set up Magnolia Blossom in Beijing?

Magnolia Lixia:

My child has always been a left-behind child, cared for by grandparents at home, I can only go home once a year, and I only see her once in three years when it is the hardest. Looking back, this hurt the child a lot.

Although I call my child every week, I still feel indebted to my child, probably because the mother has more concern, concern, and guilt for the child than the father. There is also external pressure, and when my children need me to come home to take care of them, I am accused of not fulfilling my responsibilities as a mother. But by then my sense of self had grown, and going home to be a left-behind mother was not my life choice.

In my consciousness, the female self is also very important, the identity of the mother needs to be borne by the self-capable woman, and the mother must grow up by herself to be a good mother.

When I couldn't have both, I "selfishly" chose to be myself first, but it was too stressful to be at ease.

Once I went back to my hometown and saw that there were some so-called "problems" in my children, which may be normal in the process of children's growth, especially in the absence of parental education and companionship, I found that my children were too flattering to me, especially well-behaved in front of me, and another look in front of my grandparents. In order to achieve some goals, I would tell some little lies, such as wanting to buy candy, saying that I would buy a workbook, and I realized that my children's education should not be handed over to the elderly, and I had to take responsibility for my children. After being outside for a while, you can't stay back in the countryside. Life in the countryside was closed and depressing, and I came out because of melancholy.

Because I knew a friend in Beijing who did public welfare, they opened a school for migrant children, so I brought my children over and let them enter the school for migrant children, so that I could also think about what I want to do in the future. Because of those previous experiences and ideas, I don't want to find a job for grassroots women again, and I want to do something close to my previous ideas and pay attention to grassroots migrant women. In this way, I and a few friends with similar backgrounds founded Magnolia Blossom and wanted to set up an organization dedicated to serving and supporting grassroots migrant sisters. When it first started, there was no source of funding, and we used our own savings.

The Paper: Magnolia has been in business for more than ten years, has the original intention changed? What are the original intentions that are easier to achieve and which are more difficult to achieve?

Magnolia Lixia:

This year is Mulan's thirteenth year, more than ten years have passed, our original intention has not changed, we still support and accompany our working sisters, community service is our main working method, and empowering voice is the goal. We may constantly innovate the content and working methods of our activities at different times according to the resources we can connect to. From satisfying the spiritual and cultural life of the sisters, to speaking to the public and dialogue with the public through literary and artistic activities.

There are many activities to meet everyone's spiritual and cultural needs, such as the community's elderly Yangge team, but

What we emphasize is that we need to sing our own songs, dance our own dances, tell our own stories, behind this is our subjective initiative, the mainstream spiritual culture does not yet have the voice of our group, we must express our voice, in the song to sing the needs of grassroots women loudly.

There have always been many that are not easy to achieve. We hope that grassroots working sisters can discover themselves, achieve equality in the family, and have better development opportunities in society, from individual to family to society, so that grassroots women can have their own development path in the city. In the city where she has lived for many years, she is not only a temporary builder of the city, she is also a part of the city, and in terms of urban integration, everyone is excluded from mainstream urban life. The dual household registration system of urban and rural areas also makes this group always temporary residents in the city. From personal development, employment, residence to population reproduction, children's education is not supported by corresponding policies.

How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

Magnolia blossom and green rose rehearsal "Red", photo by Xiong Ying The pictures in this article are all provided by interviewees

The Paper: When the sisters took to bigger stages, such as the China Dream Show, the Working Spring Festival Gala, and the breakout venues of the UN Women's Conference, what was the feedback you received when you performed on these stages and spaces?

Magnolia Lixia:

The feedback received ranged from positive to negative. It is normal for everyone to have criticism, as long as you do things, there will be criticism, criticism is right, we can improve what we can improve, and if there is no way to improve, then accept our current situation.

We must put the real situation, the real us, so that more people can hear and see. We're going to different places, and we're going wherever we can. We went to construction sites to perform and exhibited in the neighborhood of the city's edge village. At the same time, we also participate in some tall meetings, even if we are just a plate of wild vegetables on the table.

There is a lot of positive feedback. For example, when we did an exhibition at 798, some visitors left messages saying that they felt a strong vitality, and this group has the attributes of the bottom, and it is also rich and powerful. One of our curators said that very few exhibitions allow an audience to stay for a long time and watch it again and again. These positive feedbacks gave the sisters more confidence to make their voices heard by more people.

But for unwarranted doubts, we will go with him.

The Paper: What kind of scale is Magnolia Blossom now, what kind of members of the organization and the group served by the organization are like, such as occupation, age, place of origin, and do women of different ages have different imaginations about urban life and their future?

Mulan Lixia: Mulan has always been a small and beautiful institution, and I can use small and beautiful now because I have been wrapped in scale before, and everyone will think that Mulan is too small. From its establishment to now, the members of Mulan's organization have always been about 4 to 6 people, and we currently have 5 people, which is not too much, because of the impact of the epidemic, the survival of the overall public welfare organization in recent years has been very difficult. The people we serve are mainly in the urban villages where we are located, and radiate to several surrounding urban villages. We have a large group of 500 people, and there are many small groups, and the population of the village serving the community is 20,000 or 30,000, but it does not radiate to everyone.

It can't be said to be a service, what Mulan does is to accompany support, accompany each other, and then share, which can give some support and strength to the sisters.

Our sisters' group is about the post-70s, post-80s, post-90s, and post-00s are relatively few, mainly family-based, mainly in the service industry, and there are also full-time mothers.

Everyone has a similar feeling of life in the city, and there is no sense of belonging, which is the basic feeling.

How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

Magnolia Blossom's sisters sing their own original song Photo by Ding Qin

There is no homesickness for the hometown, no belonging to the city

The Paper: From your personal experience and the experience of your sisters, what are the reasons why people come to the city to work? How is living in the city different from living in your hometown? How do you see your relationship with the city?

Magnolia Lixia:

We have done a monologue play "Leaving Home", allowing everyone to talk about why they came to the city and what different experiences and feelings they have during the part-time job. Regarding the reasons for coming out to work, one is that the salary level is different, and the other is to get rid of the isolation of his hometown, increase his knowledge, and let himself have better development.

We sometimes talk about the difference between city life and home life. Although everyone lives in a rented house in the city, because they live longer, it is more like a so-called "home", a "home" without a destination. The so-called hometown in the countryside has become a symbol, may not go back for a year or even a few years, can not stay back, living habits and concepts are different from hometown people.

People who have been away for a long time will also miss home, but homesickness is more about relatives in their hometown, homesickness is because there are relatives and familiar people in that place, if the old people are not there, homesickness has no place to stay. In addition, there are generational differences, such as the post-90s, post-00s, they came out to work very early, or they grew up in the city, they do not have such deep homesickness as the post-70s, go back or speak Mandarin. Take my daughter as an example, she is close to the 90s of the 00s, she has no imagination of her hometown, if his grandparents' generation is gone, she may not want to go back.

The Paper: Just now you also said that sisters still don't have a sense of belonging when they come to the city, can you talk specifically about when you have a sense of belonging and when you feel that you can't fit in?

Magnolia Lixia:

It's hard to say, we hardly ever belonged to the city, but we did belong to Mulan. Taking me personally, sometimes when I go back to my hometown for a while and then return to Mulan, I also have the feeling of going home, even if it is just a rental house, these moments have a sense of belonging in a certain sense, even greater than in the countryside. Especially women,

When she left her parents' home, going back to her parents' home was like being a guest, that home was no longer her home, and now there are so many marriages that marry across regions, her husband's home is not her home, and women are like floating.

In the city for more than a few years of stable accommodation, whether this place is small or the living space is squeezed, this so-called "home" has a sense of belonging to some extent. This sense of belonging is also grown, after living in a place for a long time, you see familiar roads, familiar streets, familiar shops, although there is a certain fluidity, but there is also a certain fixation, will make you have some sense of belonging.

When working in the south, there is not much feeling out of place, because living in the space of the factory, surrounded by people who come to work, there is no intersection with the locals, and there is no need to integrate at all. In the north, when you have to move because of the demolition of a village, or when your children can't get a chance to go to school, you feel that no matter how long you live here, you have nothing to do with the city.

Some locals are still relatively friendly, and they agree with what Mulan does, but on the whole, Mulan does not contact many locals, we do not take the initiative to contact locals, our activities do not exclude locals, but we do not specifically mobilize locals to participate, in general, we and the locals are in a state of peace and security.

How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

The old site of Magnolia Blossom in 2011.

The Paper: In 2021, an article titled "Nala on the Plain" sparked widespread discussion, what do you think of the protagonist Liu Xiaoyan in the article?

Magnolia Lixia:

In a way, I am also Liu Xiaoxian. I also felt depressed in my hometown, what I wanted to pursue was very grand and vague, and I didn't want to settle for the life of my hometown like the women of my ancestors, so I wanted to go out. The outside world is wonderful and helpless, and there will be a lot of difficulties when you go outside. But what makes me different from Liu Xiaozian is that I have more courage to explore and face the cruelty of the outside world. I am also fortunate to have found my own direction and life path in the process of exploration, and to reach out to a wider range of people, so that I have the opportunity to grow, and have the courage and ability to face difficulties. One is the driving force in the body, and the other is the opportunity of the society, which is actually irreproducible.

Liu Xiaoyan lacks a little strength, or she does not find the source of strength, she does not face up to social reality, so she can only hide back.

I also came out of the countryside, I can feel the bitterness of the countryside, yearning for poetry and distant places, but when I am depressed, I can't solve the problems in reality, and after a short departure, I have to return to the present and be down-to-earth.

The Paper: Because of marriage, children's education or supporting the elderly, some women who have gone out to work have returned to the countryside.

Magnolia Lixia:

We interviewed several of these sisters last summer, mainly because their children had to go to school, because not many sisters returned to their hometowns. This year, we also held a small discussion with a few mothers, and everyone's family decision was basically that if the child went back to study, the mother would also go back to accompany him. When they return to their hometowns, they face a series of problems to re-establish a supportive relationship, to adjust to life in their hometowns, and to live apart from their husbands for a long time.

The Paper: Does migrant work give sisters the opportunity to break free from family control, contact and experience the outside world, and seek self-transformation? Has this changed the gender relations in the original family? You can start with your own experiences or those of your sisters.

Magnolia Lixia:

After coming out, women have indeed opened their eyes, gained more, become more capable, and can earn more money. I know that there is such feedback, some men are against his wife's participation in Mulan's activities, they joke that "you will learn more, understand more, and your wings will be hardened, you won't want me", although it was a joking tone, he must have insecurity. He feels that women should stay at home and take care of him and his children's three meals a day, food, clothing, housing and transportation, but when women themselves have insight and independence, they will definitely not be satisfied with such a life.

Migrant workers also give women more opportunities. For example, we have a sister who has been subjected to domestic violence, and she can support herself and her children independently by going out to work. In her hometown, a woman divorced because of domestic violence, her situation is more difficult than going out to work, if she does not leave her hometown, she is very likely to enter another marriage, and the other marriage may still have a bunch of problems, and there may be domestic violence. There are also sisters whose marriage will only be maintained in their hometown, and she may be able to get out of this marriage after she is financially independent outside.

How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

Magnolia blooms at the community bazaar.

Relationships with city locals: mutual aid rather than competition

The Paper: Apart from magnolia blossoms, what other social support do you think is conducive to migrant women living in the city? What problems have you and Mulan's sisters encountered in life, and what other needs do you particularly want to convey and hear?

Magnolia Lixia:

For example, through mass communication to promote dialogue and mutual seeing between locals and outsiders, because some locals think that outsiders have seized their resources, they can do more at the publicity level, so that the public realizes that the relationship between locals and outsiders is not a competitive relationship, it can be a relationship of mutual assistance, such as the intervention of outsiders to make local life more convenient, and the economic level will also bring contributions to locals, not just make traffic more congested and make the city dirty and poor.

Finally, I would like to say that the education of migrant children is a big problem and should be taken into account in urban public policies, and more possibilities should be provided so that these children can get a better education, become new city builders, and join the mainstay of the aging society.

How can cities be friendlier to migrant women? Magnolia Lixia: Seeing, dialogue and mutual aid

Cartography The Paper Wang Luyao

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