Lin Bao on the road. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
For these brave and beautiful female drivers, they can drive a 13-meter-long semi-trailer from Shandong to Xinjiang alone, but they are limited to the three inches of vision of the discriminators, and it is difficult to break free with all their strength.
Lin Bao, who is 1 meter 58, stands in front of the truck of 9 meters 6, such a picture is very fresh, but it does not seem out of place because of the difference in body shape.
Lin Bao skillfully loaded and unloaded, reversed and turned around, and the huge truck was like an obedient beast in her hands.
The two-time Oscar-winning director Ke Wensi, after hearing about Lin Bao from the researchers, was immediately attracted by her story. Covins's vision is not wrong, after the series of documentaries "Above the Chai Rice Oil and Salt" was broadcast, the story about Lin Bao and the female truck driver attracted the most attention and discussion.
The audience saw themselves in Lin Bao. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Truck drivers have always been considered masculine professions, and heavy tools, road life, and even the dominance of male captains all send a signal that "women are invincible."
But Lin Bao didn't care about this, she couldn't care about it.
In order to get out of the mountains, to be financially independent, to give her family a better life, and perhaps, because the profession seems cool, she has both mistakenly entered and admirably gained her place in the industry.
The documentary shows that there are about 1.26 million female truck drivers in China, and by digital, this expanding group has begun to take shape. But at the same time, the "China Truck Driver Survey Report" published in 2019 shows that the proportion of female truck drivers is only 4.2%.
Groups of female truck drivers have been invisible for too long. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Who are they? What does gender mean? What difficulties are they facing? A series of questions remained unanswered.
Lin Bao's story, her optimistic, positive, and even prickly outward growth efforts, is both rare and represents a universal tenacity of Chinese women.
This may become a beautiful stone thrown at the lake, presenting the waves and calm of the sea of female truck drivers to us.
Drive like a girl
"My name is Zhang Lin, and many people like to call me 'Lin Bao.'"
This is the first self-introduction of Lin Bao in the documentary, and it is also the title of the episode. But Covins also gave the story of the girl born in '96 a more attitude subtitle:
Drive like a girl.
Drive like a girl cool. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Like all self-improvement stories, Lin Bao also has a doomed appearance. As a little girl so young, no team would easily accept her.
"You're a baby girl, you're still so young, I'm afraid you didn't buy a driver's license, right?"
Although the story of being rejected by three captains in a row has passed for a long time, Lin Bao still unconsciously raised the volume when recalling it. She believed she was capable of the hard-working job, but at the same time, she was always grateful to the captain who accepted her.
Body shape is not a limitation. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Lin Bao introduced his story as he carefully wiped the headlights and skillfully closed the truck compartment. Her daily itinerary is to run the route from Fujian to Zhejiang, a round trip every two days.
During this two-day trip, she had to learn to starve, learn to sit for a long time, learn to endure lack of air conditioning, learn to take a cold shower at the rest station, and learn to complete all her daily routines in the car to save money.
Just like Lin Bao said, don't shout tired when you come out to work. But this road, which has no reference around it, still highlights loneliness too much. So, the Hello Kitty in the rearview mirror and the plush toys on the seat gave Lin Bao some companionship.
Her company does not stop there, and what is never abandoned in the long journey must be sleepiness. "Three or four o'clock in the morning is the most sleepy." In order to fight against it, Lin Bao adopted a method: eating it with chili dipped in chili noodles.
A kind of determination from the Yunnan-Guizhou region.
Chili noodles as "comrades-in-arms". /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Fortunately, this long road always has a thought.
Lin Bao had previously met Chen Xun on social networking sites, a truck driver who ran from Quanzhou to Jingzhou for a long distance, going back and forth for three days. So they see each other exactly once a week.
The love story of Lin Bao and Chen Xun is full of romantic colors, two large trucks head to head together, two little people push the door down, run to each other, under the illumination of the headlights Tyndall effect, this hug is like standing in a rotating music box.
Exciting encounters. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Within a few months of knowing each other, Lin Bao and Chen Xun got married. It's not an ordinary wedding scene, it's the kind of cool wedding where a row of big trucks come to pick up the kiss.
The young newlyweds, driving a new car with a panoramic skylight, go for a walk by the sea together, and are determined to continue to work hard in front of the birthday cake, and they will step by step towards a life they have built together.
Everyone who sees this place is with them and looks forward to the future that belongs to them.
But this future has not come.
The future you are looking forward to may not have the future I am looking forward to, and it is a helpless and inextricable curse for those who work hard in modern society. The pair of music box villains also failed to circumvent.
For Lin Bao, now may be her freest moment, but everyone is a person who has come from the past.
Talk about the past in front of the green mountains and waters. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Once when Lin Bao took Chen Xun home to see his parents, his father had just returned from selling bamboo baskets in the market, and Lin Bao was helping on the side, but he was afraid that he would damage his father's bamboo strips.
"Our family values sons over daughters. Everything is given to my brother first, and the rest is mine. My father coaxed me to say, sister, we don't watch others eat, and when my father sells the bamboo basket, he will buy it for you. ”
In this way, Lin Bao waited until she was fifteen years old, and her father sent her into the hands of a domestic violence husband with a dowry of six thousand yuan.
The experience of getting up at five o'clock, boiling water and making rice, and lying down for half a month after being abused by domestic violence and not being able to get up is not the life that Lin Bao or anyone should have. Escaping was her only option.
Try to choose your own life. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
Today, Lin Bao has gone far, so far that the mileage can be driven dozens of times around the earth. But that unhappy marriage left Lin Bao with a precious child, which is also the future she wants to protect and return to.
For Chen Xun, who also comes from a traditional family, even if he is the one who understands Lin Bao the most, in his blueprint, it is best not to have another child, and his wife is better not to drive a big truck outside.
"How come it's a woman?"
Becoming a truck driver is a path that The Limbo have earned for themselves, but it's not a one-off challenge.
It's not all about getting a driver's license and sitting in the driver's seat, it's about being able to resolve it as a female truck driver every day and before every problem you encounter.
Make the road your home. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
"Don't expect to find a place to sleep when you're on the road." Sister Wang, who has been driving a truck for 20 years, feels that she is already a machine that tightens the clockwork at any time.
In her eyes, no truck driver is willing to waste energy on sleep, because the golden driving state of the Hirakawa river in front of her may occur at any time.
For drivers transporting all kinds of goods, on some remote roads where traffic police and sentries rarely appear, encountering various snitches is not an anecdote in ancient darts.
Sister Wang had experienced an unexpected robbery. At that time, the three big men parked a small car in front of her van, and forcefully said that it was the stones flying from her van that broke the glass of their rear window.
The truck driver was seen as a woman, and they were smoking cigarettes while demanding compensation.
In most cases, drivers will choose to pay a little money to avoid trouble, because damage to the goods or delays in arrival are costs they cannot afford.
Anything happens on the road. /Visual China
In addition to the theft of valuable goods and the prying of the cab doors, truck drivers also have to worry about being targeted by oil thieves from long-distance freight trucks. Sister Wang had seen a parked truck being pumped out of a whole tank of fuel at once, but the driver was unaware.
This loss is several thousand yuan.
If these thrills are the dilemmas faced by the truck driver group, then as women, whether it is the sharp Lin Bao or the experienced Wang Jie, they still need to learn to fight against gender stereotypes inside and outside the industry in their own way, or compromise.
In the "China Truck Driver Survey Report", it is recorded that from obtaining a driver's license, entering the driving industry, to the loading and unloading of bills of lading, transportation, the entire professional chain, female drivers have encountered additional prejudices as a minority.
"What about your driver?" Call your driver to work! ”
No matter how many years you have been in the industry and what license you have, in the eyes of stevedores, the women who appear in the yard are all sisters-in-law who do logistics work, and there must be a man behind them who is the main labor force.
"I really don't want a woman, you don't want to be able to do it!" Freight companies that offer jobs see the same way.
A female truck driver who has been working for more than ten years has only encountered two companies willing to hire women, and she feels that these companies think that "women have a lot of things, such as pregnancy, menstruation, and so on."
Female truck drivers need more effort and luck to gain recognition. /Visual China
Even malice from women is just as common. A female driver with a cabinet-style air conditioner once met a hostess and came up and said, "Oops! How a woman! "The lady boss couldn't believe her, and the boy who came to help didn't have the female driver move to Liso."
"Female truck drivers, don't drive long distances"
The "China Truck Driver Survey Report" believes that there is occupational gender segregation in China's road freight industry. Female truck drivers not only have access to lower jobs and salaries, but also have difficulty moving upwards.
Women are not allowed to work in long-distance transport, a prime example of this vertical occupational segregation.
In interviews with the report, many female drivers expressed a desire to drive long distances, but even if their experience and skills met their needs, they would have little chance.
Women's exposure to truck driving is already very limited. /Visual China
Some managers explain this from the perspective of their partners. Driving a long distance for ten days and a half a month is floating outside, and it takes two drivers to form a partner. Female drivers are inherently few, not as good as "one size fits all", only short distances, but also save communication and management costs.
"You say you can work with a man?" It is certainly not very convenient in life and work and rest. It is more difficult to find a companion for you. So just don't do it, that's it. ”
Some managers, from a risk perspective, believe that it is too unsafe for two female drivers to run long distances outside.
"You're a woman after all!" If you go out of this truckload, for example, if you pull a vaccine, more than a million! Just kidding, not joking! ”
Sister-in-law is also a group that has not yet been paid attention to. /Visual China
However, the core of these seemingly justified demands actually exists outside the gender gap.
After all, if Lin Bao's story is not so new that more and more women can emerge and assist each other in this industry, then they will definitely be willing to use the identity of the protagonist of this documentary in exchange for a more friendly and fair working environment.
"The goods are pulled well, and it has nothing to do with men and women." When professionalism replaces gender segregation and becomes the industry's employment standard, then good female drivers will naturally have enough numbers, more opportunities, and the rich experience gained in this way to form a long-distance partnership.
The potential risks in transit mentioned are fundamentally important safety issues of a systemic nature. Casually placing it under the issue of gender is disrespectful to all drivers, cargo owners and the industry as a whole.
A German film featuring a female truck driver. /"Female Truck Driver"
In a specific story, perhaps specific people can give some specific understanding. Some team managers have let female drivers form long-distance partners, and some of the most qualified and stable in the team are senior female masters who are meticulous and capable and have a high degree of cooperation.
But on a larger scale, from the moment women developed the idea of driving a van, they had to live in misconceptions, prejudices and occupational injustices.
Hopefully, Lin Bao's story will bring some changes. /"Above Chai Rice Oil and Salt"
In the final subtitles of the film "Lin Bao", the director tells us that Lin Bao and Chen Xun decided to divorce. There are still too many traditional, occupational, and gender shackles that these two young people have to break through.
But after experiencing the extreme script of experiencing life again and again, Lin Bao's voice is still so full of energy.
As a truck driver, as a woman, she said she had to be self-reliant, and she wanted to give her family the best life possible.
"China Truck Driver Survey Report No.3", Social Sciences Academic Press, 2019-12
Female truck drivers: They have been misunderstood since the driver's license test, Beijing News, 2020-03-17
De-gendering! A Female Truck Driver's Work Practice, Truck Home, 2020-03-11
Cover tarpaulins, moving and unloading goods, traffic police punishment, millions of female truck drivers of the bitter who understands? , truck asks for directions, 2021-08-19
"Above chai rice oil and salt", documentary, Ke Wensi, 2021-07-15
✎ Author | Josepah
✎ Proofreading | Morning
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