Hi. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the people who make the things we use every day: our shoes, our handbags, our computers and cell phones. Now, this is a conversation that often calls up a lot of guilt. Imagine the teenage farm girl who makes less than a dollar an hour stitching your running shoes, or the young Chinese man who jumps off a rooftop after working overtime assembling your iPad. We, the beneficiaries of globalization, seem to exploit these victims with every purchase we make, and the injustice feels embedded in the products themselves. After all, what's wrong with a world in which a worker on an iPhone assembly line can't even afford to buy one? It's taken for granted that Chinese factories are oppressive, and that it's our desire for cheap goods that makes them so.
Pozdravljeni. Želela bi govoriti o ljudeh, ki proizvajajo stvari, ki jih dnevno uporabljamo - naše čevlje, torbice, računalnike in mobilnike. Ta tema pri ljudeh pogosto vzbudi slabo vest. Predstavljajte si najstnico s kmetije, ki s šivanjem vaših tekaških copat zasluži manj kot dolar na uro, ali mladega Kitajca, ki skoči s strehe po nadurah sestavljanja vašega iPada. Mi, udeleženci globalizacije, te žrtve izkoriščamo z vsakim opravljenim nakupom in krivica se zdi vtkana v izdelke same. Kam gre namreč svet, v katerem delavec za tekočim trakom sestavlja iPhone, a si ne more privoščiti svojega? Samoumevno se nam zdi, da so kitajske tovarne zatiralne in da jih pravzaprav naša želja po poceni artiklih dela takšne.
So, this simple narrative equating Western demand and Chinese suffering is appealing, especially at a time when many of us already feel guilty about our impact on the world, but it's also inaccurate and disrespectful. We must be peculiarly self-obsessed to imagine that we have the power to drive tens of millions of people on the other side of the world to migrate and suffer in such terrible ways. In fact, China makes goods for markets all over the world, including its own, thanks to a combination of factors: its low costs, its large and educated workforce, and a flexible manufacturing system that responds quickly to market demands. By focusing so much on ourselves and our gadgets, we have rendered the individuals on the other end into invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable as the parts of a mobile phone.
Ta preprosta pripoved, ki povezuje potrebe zahoda s kitajskim trpljenjem, je zanimiva, še posebej v času, ko se nas mnogo že počuti krive za razmere v svetu, a je tudi netočna in celo nespoštljiva. Kako vase zagledani moramo biti, da verjamemo, da desetine milijonov ljudi na drugem koncu sveta vodimo v preseljevanja in trpljenje na tako strašne načine. Kitajska lahko ustvarja proizvode za svetovne trge, vključno s svojim, zaradi skupka dejavnikov - nizkih stroškov, obsežne in izobražene delovne sile ter prilagodljivega proizvodnega sistema, ki se hitro odziva na potrebe trga. S tem, ko smo obsedeni s sabo in z našimi napravami, smo ljudi na drugem koncu naredili nevidne, tako majhne in nadomestjive kot sestavne delčke mobilnega telefona.
Chinese workers are not forced into factories because of our insatiable desire for iPods. They choose to leave their homes in order to earn money, to learn new skills, and to see the world. In the ongoing debate about globalization, what's been missing is the voices of the workers themselves.
Kitajski delavci niso prisiljeni delati v tovarnah zaradi naše nenasitne želje po iPodih. Odločijo se zapustiti domove, da bi zaslužili, se izučili novih spretnosti in videli svet. V aktualnih pogovorih o globalizaciji manjkajo glasovi delavcev samih.
Here are a few.
Tu jih je nekaj.
Bao Yongxiu: "My mother tells me to come home and get married, but if I marry now, before I have fully developed myself, I can only marry an ordinary worker, so I'm not in a rush."
Bao Yongxiu: "Moja mama želi, da pridem domov in se omožim. A če to storim zdaj, ko se želim še razvijati, se lahko poročim le z navadnim delavcem, zato nočem hiteti."
Chen Ying: "When I went home for the new year, everyone said I had changed. They asked me, what did you do that you have changed so much? I told them that I studied and worked hard. If you tell them more, they won't understand anyway."
Chen Ying: "Ko sem šla domov za novo leto, so mi vsi dejali, da sem se spremenila. Vprašali so me, kaj je privedlo do tega. Povedala sem jim, da sem se pridno učila in delala. Če bi jim povedala več, itak ne bi razumeli."
Wu Chunming: "Even if I make a lot of money, it won't satisfy me. Just to make money is not enough meaning in life."
Wu Chunming: "Tudi če bi veliko zaslužila, ne bi bila zadovoljna. Le kopičenje denarja ni dovolj v življenju."
Xiao Jin: "Now, after I get off work, I study English, because in the future, our customers won't be only Chinese, so we must learn more languages."
Xiao Jin: "Po končanem delu se učim angleščino, saj v prihodnosti naše stranke ne bodo le Kitajci, zato se moramo naučiti več jezikov."
All of these speakers, by the way, are young women, 18 or 19 years old.
Vse to so glasovi mladih žensk, starih 18 ali 19 let.
So I spent two years getting to know assembly line workers like these in the south China factory city called Dongguan. Certain subjects came up over and over: how much money they made, what kind of husband they hoped to marry, whether they should jump to another factory or stay where they were. Other subjects came up almost never, including living conditions that to me looked close to prison life: 10 or 15 workers in one room, 50 people sharing a single bathroom, days and nights ruled by the factory clock. Everyone they knew lived in similar circumstances, and it was still better than the dormitories and homes of rural China.
Dve leti sem spoznavala delavce za tekočim trakom, kot so ti v tovarni v mestu Dongguan na jugu Kitajske. Nekatere teme pogovora so se pogosto ponavljale - koliko zaslužijo, kakšnega moža si želijo, ali bi bilo pametno zamenjati tovarno ali ostati v tej. Drugih tem se skoraj nikoli niso dotaknile, na primer bivanjskih pogojev, ki so se mi zdeli kot zapor - 10 do 15 delavcev v eni sobi, ena kopalnica za 50 ljudi, tovarniška ura, ki meri dneve in noči. Vsi njihovi znanci so živeli v podobnih razmerah, a so kljub temu bile boljše kot spalnice in domovi podeželske Kitajske.
The workers rarely spoke about the products they made, and they often had great difficulty explaining what exactly they did. When I asked Lu Qingmin, the young woman I got to know best, what exactly she did on the factory floor, she said something to me in Chinese that sounded like "qiu xi." Only much later did I realize that she had been saying "QC," or quality control. She couldn't even tell me what she did on the factory floor. All she could do was parrot a garbled abbreviation in a language she didn't even understand.
Delavci so le redko govorili o izdelkih, ki so jih ustvarjali, in pogosto niso znali povedati, kaj točno delajo. Ko sem vprašala Lu Qingmin, mlado žensko, s katero sva se najbolj zbližali, kaj točno počne v tovarni, mi je v kitajščini odgovorila nekaj takega kot "qiu xi". Šele dosti kasneje sem ugotovila, da je s tem mislila "QC" ali nadzor kakovosti. Ni znala torej točno razložiti, kaj je njeno delo. Le ponovila je popačeno okrajšavo v jeziku, ki ga še sama ni razumela.
Karl Marx saw this as the tragedy of capitalism, the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor. Unlike, say, a traditional maker of shoes or cabinets, the worker in an industrial factory has no control, no pleasure, and no true satisfaction or understanding in her own work. But like so many theories that Marx arrived at sitting in the reading room of the British Museum, he got this one wrong. Just because a person spends her time making a piece of something does not mean that she becomes that, a piece of something. What she does with the money she earns, what she learns in that place, and how it changes her, these are the things that matter. What a factory makes is never the point, and the workers could not care less who buys their products.
Karl Marx je v tem videl tragedijo kapitalizma, odtujitev delavca od izdelka v njegovih rokah. Za razliko od tradicionalnih čevljarjev ali mizarjev delavec v industrijski tovarni nima nadzora, veselja, zadovoljstva ali razumevanja njegovega dela. A kot mnogo drugih teorij, do katerih je Marx prišel v čitalnici Britanskega muzeja, je ta napačna. Čeprav neka oseba preživi čas v izdelovanju dela nekega proizvoda, to še ne pomeni, da sama postane prav to, del nečesa. Kar stori z zasluženim denarjem, denarjem od dela na tistem kraju, in kako jo to spremeni, so dejstva, ki štejejo. Končni izdelek ni nikdar bistvo in delavcem je skrajno vseeno, kdo je njegov kupec.
Journalistic coverage of Chinese factories, on the other hand, plays up this relationship between the workers and the products they make. Many articles calculate: How long would it take for this worker to work in order to earn enough money to buy what he's making? For example, an entry-level-line assembly line worker in China in an iPhone plant would have to shell out two and a half months' wages for an iPhone.
Novinarsko poročanje iz kitajskih tovarn, na drugi strani, prikazuje razmerje med delavci in proizvodi, ki tam nastajajo. Veliko člankov dela izračune, koliko časa bi moral delavec opravljati to delo, da bi si z zasluženim lahko privoščil artikel, ki ga izdeluje. Delavec za tekočim trakom z nezahtevnimi zadolžitvami v kitajskem obratu za iPhone bi moral zanj odšteti plači dveh mesecev in pol.
But how meaningful is this calculation, really? For example, I recently wrote an article in The New Yorker magazine, but I can't afford to buy an ad in it. But, who cares? I don't want an ad in The New Yorker, and most of these workers don't really want iPhones. Their calculations are different. How long should I stay in this factory? How much money can I save? How much will it take to buy an apartment or a car, to get married, or to put my child through school?
A kako bistven je pravzaprav ta izračun? Pred kratkim sem na primer napisala članek za časopis The New Yorker, a kljub temu si ne morem privoščiti oglasa v njem. In kaj potem? Saj nočem oglasa v časopisu, tako kot večina teh delavcev ne želi iPhonov. Njihovi izračuni so drugačni. Koliko časa bi moral ostati v tej tovarni? Koliko denarja lahko privarčujem? Kdaj si bom lahko privoščil nakup stanovanja ali avta, poroko ali šolanje mojega otroka?
The workers I got to know had a curiously abstract relationship with the product of their labor. About a year after I met Lu Qingmin, or Min, she invited me home to her family village for the Chinese New Year. On the train home, she gave me a present: a Coach brand change purse with brown leather trim. I thanked her, assuming it was fake, like almost everything else for sale in Dongguan. After we got home, Min gave her mother another present: a pink Dooney & Bourke handbag, and a few nights later, her sister was showing off a maroon LeSportsac shoulder bag. Slowly it was dawning on me that these handbags were made by their factory, and every single one of them was authentic.
Delavci, ki sem jih spoznala, so imeli s proizvodom njihovega dela nenavadno abstrakten odnos. Kakšno leto po tem, ko sem spoznala Lu Qingmin oz. Min, me je povabila domov v domačo vas ob praznovanju kitajskega novega leta. Na vlaku domov mi je dala darilo, drobižnico znamke Coach z obrobo iz rjavega usnja. Zahvalila sem se ji in mislila, da gre za ponaredek, kot večina stvari naprodaj v Dongguanu. Doma je Min dala svoji mami še eno darilo, rožnato torbico znamke Dooney & Bourke, in nekaj večerov kasneje je njena sestra ponosno nosila rjavo torbo znamke LeSportsac. Počasi sem spoznala, da so te torbe izdelovali v tovarni, kjer dela, in prav vsaka je bila original.
Min's sister said to her parents, "In America, this bag sells for 320 dollars." Her parents, who are both farmers, looked on, speechless. "And that's not all -- Coach is coming out with a new line, 2191," she said. "One bag will sell for 6,000." She paused and said, "I don't know if that's 6,000 yuan or 6,000 American dollars, but anyway, it's 6,000." (Laughter)
Minina sestra je povedala staršema, "V Ameriki taka torbica stane 320 dolarjev." Starša, oba kmetovalca, sta nemo ostrmela. "In to še ni vse, znamka Coach ustvarja novo kolekcijo imenovano 2191. Torbica bo stala 6.000." Ustavila se je in nadaljevala, "Ne vem, ali to pomeni 6.000 yuanov ali dolarjev, a kakorkoli, vredna bo 6.000." (Smeh)
Min's sister's boyfriend, who had traveled home with her for the new year, said, "It doesn't look like it's worth that much."
Fant Minine sestre, ki je prišel z njo za novo leto, je rekel, "Sploh ne zgleda, da je toliko vredna."
Min's sister turned to him and said, "Some people actually understand these things. You don't understand shit."
Minina sestra se je obrnila in rekla, "Nekateri ljudje razumejo te stvari." "Ti pa nimaš pojma."
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Smeh) (Aplavz)
In Min's world, the Coach bags had a curious currency. They weren't exactly worthless, but they were nothing close to the actual value, because almost no one they knew wanted to buy one, or knew how much it was worth. Once, when Min's older sister's friend got married, she brought a handbag along as a wedding present. Another time, after Min had already left the handbag factory, her younger sister came to visit, bringing two Coach Signature handbags as gifts.
V Mininem svetu imajo Coach torbice nenavadno vrednost. Niso bile ravno ničvredne, a še vedno zelo daleč od prodajne vrednosti, saj jih ni skoraj nihče hotel kupiti ali poznal njihove cene. Ko se je poročila prijateljica Minine starejše sestre, je Min skupaj z darilom prinesla tudi ročno torbico. Drugič, ko Min že ni več delala v tovarni torbic, jo je obiskala njena mlajša sestra in kot darilo prinesla dve torbici kolekcije Coach Signature.
I looked in the zippered pocket of one, and I found a printed card in English, which read, "An American classic. In 1941, the burnished patina of an all-American baseball glove inspired the founder of Coach to create a new collection of handbags from the same luxuriously soft gloved-hand leather. Six skilled leatherworkers crafted 12 Signature handbags with perfect proportions and a timeless flair. They were fresh, functional, and women everywhere adored them. A new American classic was born."
Pogledala sem v žepek z zadrgo ene od torbic, v katerem je bila kartica z napisom v angleščini, ki pravi, "Ameriška klasika. Leta 1941 je zglajena patina ameriške rokavice za baseball navdihnila ustanovitelja znamke Coach, da je nastala nova linija ročnih torbic iz enakega prestižno mehkega usnja. Šest spretnih usnjarjev je ustvarilo 12 torbic linije Signature, popolnih razmerij in brezčasne elegance. Bile so sveže, praktične in ženske so jih oboževale. Rodila se je nova ameriška klasika."
I wonder what Karl Marx would have made of Min and her sisters. Their relationship with the product of their labor was more complicated, surprising and funny than he could have imagined. And yet, his view of the world persists, and our tendency to see the workers as faceless masses, to imagine that we can know what they're really thinking.
Sprašujem se, kaj bi Karl Marx videl v Min in njenih sestrah. Njihov odnos do rezultatov njihovega dela je bolj zapleten, presenetljiv in zabaven, kot si je lahko zamišljal. A še vedno njegov pogled na svet ostaja in z njim naše nagnjenje, da vidimo delavce kot množice brez identitete, in da verjamemo, da natančno vemo, kako razmišljajo.
The first time I met Min, she had just turned 18 and quit her first job on the assembly line of an electronics factory. Over the next two years, I watched as she switched jobs five times, eventually landing a lucrative post in the purchasing department of a hardware factory. Later, she married a fellow migrant worker, moved with him to his village, gave birth to two daughters, and saved enough money to buy a secondhand Buick for herself and an apartment for her parents. She recently returned to Dongguan on her own to take a job in a factory that makes construction cranes, temporarily leaving her husband and children back in the village.
Ko sem prvič srečala Min, je pravkar dopolnila 18 let in pustila prvo službo za tekočim trakom v tovarni z elektroniko. Naslednji dve leti je zamenjala službo petkrat in nazadnje pristala na obetavnem položaju na nakupnem oddelku tovarne za strojno opremo. Zatem se je poročila s kolegom, priseljenim delavcem, se preselila z njim v njegovo vas, rodila dve hčerki in privarčevala dovolj denarja za nakup rabljenega Buicka zase in stanovanja za njene starše. Pred kratkim se je sama vrnila v Dongguan, na delovno mesto v tovarni, ki izdeluje gradbene žerjave, in začasno zapustila moža in otroka, ki so ostali v vasi.
In a recent email to me, she explained, "A person should have some ambition while she is young so that in old age she can look back on her life and feel that it was not lived to no purpose."
V nedavnem elektronskem sporočilu mi je pisala, "Mlad človek bi moral imeti želje, da se lahko na stara leta ozre in ve, da ni zapravil življenja."
Across China, there are 150 million workers like her, one third of them women, who have left their villages to work in the factories, the hotels, the restaurants and the construction sites of the big cities. Together, they make up the largest migration in history, and it is globalization, this chain that begins in a Chinese farming village and ends with iPhones in our pockets and Nikes on our feet and Coach handbags on our arms that has changed the way these millions of people work and marry and live and think. Very few of them would want to go back to the way things used to be.
Na Kitajskem je 150 milijonov takih delavcev, tretjina je žensk, ki so zapustile domače vasi in odšle na delo v tovarne, hotele, restavracije in gradbišča v velemesta. Skupaj predstavljajo najobsežnejše preseljevanje v zgodovini in prav globalizacija, veriga, ki se začenja v kitajski podeželski vasi in se konča z iPhoni v naših žepih, čevlji Nike na naših nogah in Coach torbicami v naših rokah, je spremenila način, kako ti milijoni ljudi delajo, se poročajo, živijo in razmišljajo. Le peščica si jih želi nazaj v stare razmere.
When I first went to Dongguan, I worried that it would be depressing to spend so much time with workers. I also worried that nothing would ever happen to them, or that they would have nothing to say to me. Instead, I found young women who were smart and funny and brave and generous. By opening up their lives to me, they taught me so much about factories and about China and about how to live in the world.
Ko sem prvič šla v Dongguan, sem se bala, da me bo preživljanje časa z delavci začelo moriti. Skrbelo me je, da se jim ne bo nič novega dogajalo, ali da mi ne bodo ničesar povedali. Pravzaprav pa sem spoznala mlade ženske, ki so bistre in zabavne, pogumne in velikodušne. Ko so me sprejele v svoja življenja, so me ogromno naučile o tovarnah, o Kitajski in kako živeti v svetu.
This is the Coach purse that Min gave me on the train home to visit her family. I keep it with me to remind me of the ties that tie me to the young women I wrote about, ties that are not economic but personal in nature, measured not in money but in memories. This purse is also a reminder that the things that you imagine, sitting in your office or in the library, are not how you find them when you actually go out into the world.
To je Coach denarnica, ki mi jo je podarila Min na vlaku med potjo k njenim domačim. Imam jo s sabo, da me opominja na vezi, ki me vežejo na dekleta, o katerih sem pisala, vezi, ki niso ekonomske, pač pa osebne narave, merjene ne v denarju, pač pa v spominih. Ta denarnica je tudi opomin, da stvari, o katerih razmišljate v svoji pisarni ali knjižnici, niso take, kot jih v resnici izkusite, ko stopite v svet.
Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)
Hvala. (Aplavz) (Aplavz)
Chris Anderson: Thank you, Leslie, that was an insight that a lot of us haven't had before. But I'm curious. If you had a minute, say, with Apple's head of manufacturing, what would you say?
Chris Anderson: Hvala, Leslie, za pogled, ki ga mnogi prej nismo poznali. A nekaj me zanima. Če bi imela minuto z vodjo proizvodnje pri Applu, kaj bi mu dejala?
Leslie Chang: One minute?
Leslie Chang: Eno minuto?
CA: One minute. (Laughter)
CA: Eno. (Smeh)
LC: You know, what really impressed me about the workers is how much they're self-motivated, self-driven, resourceful, and the thing that struck me, what they want most is education, to learn, because most of them come from very poor backgrounds. They usually left school when they were in 7th or 8th grade. Their parents are often illiterate, and then they come to the city, and they, on their own, at night, during the weekends, they'll take a computer class, they'll take an English class, and learn really, really rudimentary things, you know, like how to type a document in Word, or how to say really simple things in English. So, if you really want to help these workers, start these small, very focused, very pragmatic classes in these schools, and what's going to happen is, all your workers are going to move on, but hopefully they'll move on into higher jobs within Apple, and you can help their social mobility and their self-improvement. When you talk to workers, that's what they want. They do not say, "I want better hot water in the showers. I want a nicer room. I want a TV set." I mean, it would be nice to have those things, but that's not why they're in the city, and that's not what they care about.
LC: Veste, name je pustilo močan vtis, kako so delavci samoiniciativni, angažirani in iznajdljivi, in prevzelo me je, da si najbolj želijo izobrazbe, učenja, saj jih veliko prihaja iz revnih okolij. Veliko jih je končalo s šolanjem v sedmem ali osmem razredu. Njihovi starši so pogosto nepismeni, oni pa pridejo v mesto in se ob večerih in koncih tedna sami udeležujejo računalniških tečajev, tečajev angleščine in osvajajo zelo zelo osnovne stvari, kot kako napisati dokument v Wordu, ali kako povedati enostavne stvari v angleščini. Če torej res želite pomagati tem delavcem, začnite izvajati te skromne, a zelo načrtne, pragmatične tečaje, ki bodo vašim delavcem omogočili, da se premikajo naprej, po možnosti na boljše položaje pri Applu, kar prispeva k njihovi družbeni mobilnosti in njihovemu lastnemu napredku. Če vprašate delavce, je to, kar si želijo. Ne bodo rekli, "Hočem toplejšo vodo za tuširanje. Hočem lepšo sobo. Hočem tv sprejemnik." Bilo bi sicer lepo, da bi imeli vse to, a to ni razlog, da so prišli v mesto, in te stvari jim ne pomenijo veliko.
CA: Was there a sense from them of a narrative that things were kind of tough and bad, or was there a narrative of some kind of level of growth, that things over time were getting better?
CA: Je bilo v njihovih pripovedih čutiti, da je njihov položaj težak in obupen, ali bolj, da gre za razvoj in da se razmere sčasoma izboljšujejo?
LC: Oh definitely, definitely. I mean, you know, it was interesting, because I spent basically two years hanging out in this city, Dongguan, and over that time, you could see immense change in every person's life: upward, downward, sideways, but generally upward. If you spend enough time, it's upward, and I met people who had moved to the city 10 years ago, and who are now basically urban middle class people, so the trajectory is definitely upward. It's just hard to see when you're suddenly sucked into the city. It looks like everyone's poor and desperate, but that's not really how it is. Certainly, the factory conditions are really tough, and it's nothing you or I would want to do, but from their perspective, where they're coming from is much worse, and where they're going is hopefully much better, and I just wanted to give that context of what's going on in their minds, not what necessarily is going on in yours.
LC: Prav gotovo, prav gotovo. Veste, bilo je zanimivo, saj sem praktično dve leti preživela med ljudmi v tem mestu, Dongguan, in v tem času je bilo videti izjemne spremembe v življenju vseh - navzgor, navzdol, vstran, a večinoma spremembe na bolje. Po določenem času gre na bolje in spoznala sem ljudi, ki so se v mesto preselili pred desetletjem, zdaj pa so del mestnega srednjega sloja, krivulja gre torej zagotovo navzgor. Težko je le, ko se kar naenkrat znajdeš v mestu. Videti je, da so vsi revni in obupani, a v resnici ni tako. Gotovo so delovne razmere v tovarnah zelo težke in gotovo nihče od nas ne bi želel tam delati, a z njihovega stališča je okolje, od koder prihajajo, veliko slabše in upajo, da so na pravi poti k nečemu veliko boljšemu, zato sem želela predstaviti okvir njihovih misli, ki se ne ujemajo nujno z vašimi.
CA: Thanks so much for your talk. Thank you very much. (Applause)
CA: Najlepša hvala za vaše mnenje. Hvala tudi vam. (Aplavz)