Editor’s note: bid farewell to the night of the city and go to the deep clouds of your hometown. Trapped by the epidemic for two years, the post-90s crossed mountains and seas and went home for reunion. In their hometown, they are more like foreigners who stay for a short time. In their perspective, they see the well-being of people, social changes and the feelings of family and country. On the occasion of the Spring Festival of the year of the tiger in renyin, times finance launched a series of reports on “my hometown, my foreign land”, which is the fifth article.
As last year, Dapeng and his wife stayed at Foxconn in Taiyuan for the new year again. They only have three days off this Spring Festival and have to go to work on the second day of the new year.
Dapeng has two children, a high school student and a primary school student. They all spend the new year with their grandparents in their hometown. The children have a problem with their parents not going home for the new year. Dapeng can’t help it. If he wants a 3000 yuan Foxconn retention bonus, he can only stay at work in the factory.
He sent new clothes to the children and transferred accounts to the old man. Dapeng didn’t prepare new year’s products and delicious food for himself and his wife. Three meals a day are no different from usual. The new year’s Eve dinner is still a fast food in the canteen. “There are old people and small people, so we can only refuel.”
In Foxconn factories across the country, most workers have returned to their hometown. The canteen is empty, and the gate that used to be crowded has become deserted. There are also a few people like Dapeng who choose to stay behind to guard the machines on the day of the reunion of thousands of families.
In order to live or escape from life, the workers who choose to stay behind maintain the operation of Foxconn, a huge production machine.
You can earn 8000 yuan in January and help recruit workers on New Year’s Eve
On the new year’s eve of Xin Chou Nian (January 31), Taiyuan Foxconn restaurant C was open to employees free of charge. Da Peng showed his work card and got a sector full of food, including chicken legs, onions, green peppers and a scallop. This is his new year’s meal.
Restaurant C has a set meal for a fee. These sets include donkey fire, roast fish, abalone sauce and rice, which are 35 yuan each. Big Peng didn’t buy it. He came here just to have this free meal.
According to the video taken by Dapeng, at about 18 PM, someone was waiting in line for dinner in restaurant C. The dining table is four seats, which is divided into four pieces by a higher board. The workers eat with their heads down or look at their mobile phones. No one is chatting and can’t chat.
When he returned to the rental house after dinner, Dapeng and his wife made a video call to the home and chatted with his parents and children for a while. Dapeng promised his parents that he would take leave to go back to his hometown when he got the retention bonus on February 11.
Dapeng’s hometown is in Jincheng, Shanxi Province, less than 4 hours’ drive from Taiyuan. The reason why he stayed in the province to work was to take care of his parents and children. Jincheng also has Foxconn factory, but there is no refund. He and his wife went to Foxconn Taiyuan for three years.
In Foxconn, Dapeng does equipment maintenance in the workshop, and his wife is an assembly line operator. The salary consists of a base salary of more than 2000 yuan and overtime pay. In January, if he goes home for the Chinese new year, the overtime is only about 40 hours and the salary is about 3500 yuan.
As regular employees, he and his wife chose to stay in the factory. In addition to three times the salary of the legal holiday of the Spring Festival, they could also get a retention bonus of 3000 yuan at the cost of only taking a three-day rest from January 29 to 31. If the dispatched workers stay, the retention bonus is 1600 yuan, which is equal to the salary of more than 8000 yuan in January.
“Fear of weather changes, fear of traffic jams on the road, do not arrive on time when returning to work, and there is no retention bonus.” Originally, Da Peng could take advantage of the three-day holiday to go home. He was worried that he would stay in Taiyuan only after the 3000 yuan he got flew. He said that the child was used to it.
Dapeng’s life is stressful. His family has two children studying and has to support the elderly. He has to give his family 4000 yuan a month. After the Spring Festival, they plan to raise their monthly money to 5000 yuan.
Of course, wages alone are not enough. On the 31 day, Dapeng also made three live broadcast of the tiktok, which lasted for more than 4 hours, and the earliest one started at 5:40 a.m. He does at least two live broadcasts every day, with a total duration of more than 2 hours, which is for his intermediary business.
Dapeng revealed that on average, one new person can be recommended to enter Foxconn Taiyuan every day. If the person who enters the factory does not leave during the probation period, Dapeng will get a recommendation bonus of 500 yuan, “an average of 10 people and 5 people will run.”
In order to let the job seekman notice him, he runs the tiktok account, updates the short video every day, and makes live broadcast. He told times finance that he also planned to do matchmaker business and find objects for those who recommended him to enter the factory. He saw the breath of Foxconn in the window of the Spring Festival workshop for a few days.
The plant is cold and the workshop is in full swing
Like Dapeng, many young people who don’t have a family stay at Foxconn. Some are homeless, others just want to save money to realize their wishes.
Hu Ying, 24, is a testing worker on the Foxconn assembly line in Zhengzhou. She spent the Spring Festival in the Foxconn factory this year. According to her observation, most of the canteens in the factory are still open, the small canteens are basically closed, and most of the people in the dormitory have gone.
Times finance and economics learned that many workers took advantage of the holiday to go home for the new year, and many people worked for three months, got the refund and left before the Spring Festival. On the one hand, the factory is deserted. On the other hand, due to the lack of personnel, some workshops are in full swing.
“I worked in a work station alone. Originally, two people worked in a work station. I ran the equipment and broke my leg.” In the days approaching the Spring Festival, Hu Ying works for two people by herself. She has to work overtime for 2.5 hours every day. In order to catch up with the work period, the original five-day holiday has become two days.
Repeated one action over and over again, her hands and joints ache, and music can make her relax briefly. After entering Foxconn for more than half a year, she heard the song from the radio in the workshop for the first time. The mobile phone is forbidden to enter the workshop. What she can usually hear is the endless roar of machines, “a little New Year atmosphere, like the feeling in the supermarket.”
Foxconn gave Hu Ying a new year gift bag with dried fruits and cereals. She didn’t buy other new year’s products. She just took advantage of the two-day holiday to relax, hot pot with her friends on New Year’s Eve and watch movies on the first day of the new year. Previously, she also sent handwritten “Fu” to her family.
With a retention bonus of 3300 yuan, Hu Ying can earn 6000-7000 yuan in January this year. She doesn’t have much regret that she can’t go home for the Spring Festival.
Her hometown is Pingdingshan, Henan Province, less than two hours’ drive from Foxconn in Zhengzhou. She has been home before the Mid Autumn Festival and national day. Because the nucleic acid test report within 24 hours was needed to return to her hometown, and the test required a long queue, she didn’t take advantage of the only two-day holiday to go home.
“I now work for fruit flour to buy millet.” Hu Ying’s current product is iphone13, and she has been making rice noodles for seven years. She bought a Xiaomi 11 pro in December last year. She also has Xiaomi’s flat panel, electric vehicle and smart appliance at home. “I just buy what I want when I work.”
After crossing 2021 at Foxconn, she is ready to work for another year and leave. After two shifts for a long time, her biological clock has been disordered, and she is more used to working at night. She will be particularly sleepy in the afternoon when she is on the day shift, and it is not easy to fall asleep at night.
Hu Ying’s friend Xiao Liang also didn’t go home for the new year in order to pay a high rebate. He is a dispatched worker. He entered Foxconn to “screw” in early November. After working for three months, he can only get a refund of 7500 yuan in early February. If he goes home for the new year, he not only doesn’t get the retention bonus, but also can’t get the refund at all.
If there is no refund, Xiao Liang’s average monthly income at Foxconn is no more than 3000 yuan. Last December, he received 2800 yuan.
I didn’t dare to go home without getting married. I lost 50000 a year in stock speculation
On New Year’s Eve, thousands of lights are shining and fireworks are dazzling. People look up to the starry sky with their partners, children and parents at the same time, but there are always human single shadows wandering in the streets of foreign countries. Many people do not have time to go home, but dare not face their parents.
Like last year, Xi’an Renbing stayed in Shenzhen for the new year again. This is his 13th year at Foxconn. During this period, he returned to his hometown for the Chinese New Year no more than four times, the last time in 2019.
Brother Bing said that if they were in their hometown in Xi’an, their mother and sister would make rice wine, steam steamed bread and steam flower steamed bread to worship their ancestors. He can’t do this. He can only simply cook noodles and order dishes for the festival.
He is an otaku and a senior shareholder. During the Spring Festival, when the stock market was closed, he spent most of his time at home playing with his mobile phone and chewing dried fruits. The dried fruits were made by Foxconn and bought by himself. He was ready to go out and climb mountains in a few days.
He stayed in Shenzhen neither because of the retention bonus nor because he was stopped by the epidemic.
As a skilled worker, he has no retention bonus. The Spring Festival holiday is longer than that of Dapeng and Hu Ying. He has a holiday on January 26. On January 27 and 28, he works overtime for two days according to the arrangement of his leaders. If there are no accidents, he starts work on the eighth day of the first month.
Although there were outbreaks in Xi’an and Shenzhen in January, Xi’an was officially unsealed on January 24. Since 0:00 on January 26, Shenzhen has a low risk. If he wants to return home, he only needs a nucleic acid test report.
“Old, didn’t make money and didn’t get married.” This is the real reason why he stayed at Foxconn. His salary is not low. His position grade is division three, and his base salary is 6800 yuan. If overtime is included, his monthly salary is about 10000 yuan, but he has not had much savings.
About 10 years ago, he began to devote himself to the stock market. He spent several hours speculating in stocks every day. He has been losing money. He lost 50000 yuan in 2021. Over the years, he didn’t buy a car, a house or get married.
He has a friend who is the up Master of station B. He once said in his friend’s video that he has fallen and doesn’t want to harm girls. He didn’t think about dating and marriage. “I’m tired of supporting myself and have no sense of responsibility.”
At present, brother Bing’s expectation of life is to stay at Foxconn for another two years. When the social security is paid for 15 years, he can get a pension. Therefore, he maintains the status quo for the time being and has no intention to leave Foxconn.
Speaking of the Spring Festival, he recalled those temple fairs and large collections in his hometown cancelled because of the epidemic, which can only be aftertaste through the photos a few years ago. Looking at the photos of visiting Xi’an scenic spots with his family on the first day of the lunar new year in 2016, he said that the new year in his hometown was tasteless, which is also the reason why he didn’t go home for the new year.
