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.
大家好 我想稍微談一下 一些生產我們每天使用的東西的人 我們的鞋子, 皮包, 電腦還有手機 接下來這段對話經常是喚起一連串的罪疚感 試想像一個從農村來的年輕女孩 以每小時少於1塊美金的工資,縫製你的跑步鞋 或者那個中國青年在加班組裝你的iPad後 就從屋頂跳下去了 我們是全球化的得益者,然而我們進行的每一筆交易 似乎都在剝削這些犧牲者 這種不公義的感覺 也被移殖於產品之中 到底是這個世界出了甚麼問題呢? 為什麼在iPhone 生產線上的工人買不起他們生產的產品呢? 中國工廠壓迫工人被視為理所當然 因為大家都追求便宜的產品 這也讓壓迫順理成章
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.
所以, 西方世界的需求 換來中國人的苦難, 似乎是一個簡單而準確的描述 尤其是我們很多人已經 為自己對世界的影響感到愧疚 然而, 這也是不正確, 不尊重他人的 我們當下應該是自以為是地認為 我們有力量操控在地球另一端的數千萬人口 將苦難以惡劣的方式轉移到 他們身上 事實上,中國為全球市場生產產品 包括中國本身, 歸功於幾個綜合因素 低成本, 大量且受過教育的勞動力 還有彈性的生產系統 讓他們可以快速回應市場的需求 藉著聚焦在我們自己身上和我們的小玩意 我們將地球另一端的個體 化作透明, 就像把他們當成 微不足道, 隨時可更換的手機零件一樣
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.
中國的工人並非因為我們對iPods難以滿足的需求 而被強迫到工廠工作 他們選擇離開家鄉是為了 學習新的技能並且開眼界 在大家如火如荼地辯論全球化時 工人的聲音卻一直被忽略
Here are a few.
這裡我有幾個例子
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."
包詠秀(音譯): "我媽媽要我回家鄉結婚 但是如果我在還沒充實自己前就結婚 那我只能嫁個一般的工人 所以我現在還不急"
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."
陳英(音譯): "當我回家鄉過年時 大家都說我變了, 他們問我 "你做了甚麼, 為什麼改變這麼大呢?" 我告訴他們, "我很認真讀書, 也很認真工作, 即使你想告訴他們 多一點, 他們也是不會理解的"
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."
吳春明(音譯): "即使我賺很多錢 也無法滿足我了 生命的意義不只是在賺錢"
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."
肖晶 (音譯): "現在, 我下班後就學習英文, 因為將來,我們客戶不單只有中國人 所以我們必須學習更多的語言"
All of these speakers, by the way, are young women, 18 or 19 years old.
以上你所聽到的說話, 都出自年輕的女孩 18, 或者19歲
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.
我花了兩年時間, 去認識一些組裝線上的工人 像這些在中國南方的工廠城市, 叫東莞 特定的話題一再被帶起 好像她們賺多少錢 希望嫁給甚麼樣的老公 是否應該跳槽到另一個工廠 或是繼續待在原來的地方 另一些幾乎從來沒有被提出的話題,包括 在我看起來很像監獄生活的居住環境 10到15個工人擠在同一個房間 50個人共用一間浴室 從早到晚被工廠裏的時鐘操控著 他們認識的每個人都居住在類似的環境 而這個環境比偏僻家鄉裡的 宿舍和房子已經算優勝了
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.
這些工人很少談及他們所生產的產品 而且大部分都不知道如何解釋 實際上她們的工作是甚麼 當我問陸清敏 (音譯), 那個我最熟悉的年輕女孩, 她到底在工作現場做甚麼時 她用中文回答我, 聽起來像是 "球西" 一直是到後來我才晃然大悟,原來她一直說的是 "QC" 或者品質控制(quality control) 她甚至無法告訴我她在工廠實在是做甚麼的 她只是在機械式般模仿說些似是而非的英文縮寫 而英語是她完全不了解的
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.
馬克思認為這是資本主義的悲劇 這種工人與他們所生產的產品之間的疏離 不像, 譬如說, 傳統鞋匠或作櫥櫃的工人 這些工人在工廠沒有控制權 工作裡沒有娛樂, 在她的工作裏 沒有真正的成功感或者對產品本身的認知 像很多馬克思 坐在大英博物館的閱讀室想出來的理論一樣 他對這種情況的了解是錯的 一個人花時間 生產出一件產品, 並不代表 她就變成了這件產品或者這件產品的一部分 她用她所賺的錢所作的事 從工作場所上學習到的知識, 這些知識如何改變她 這些事才是重要的 工廠製作怎麼樣的產品, 實際上並不是重點 這些工人也不在意到底誰買了他們生產的產品
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.
另外一方面, 新聞報導提及中國工廠時 過於強調工人 和他們生產的產品之間的關係 很多報導會計算: 一個工人需要工作多久才能 賺到一件他們所生產的產品 舉例來說,一個在中國iPhone工廠工作 的基層組裝工人要花兩個半月的薪水 才可以負擔一部 iPhone
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?
但是說實在的, 這樣的計算有何意義呢? 例如, 我最近寫了一篇文章 發表在紐約客雜誌 (New Yorker Magazine) 上 但是我就負擔不了在雜誌裡刊登廣告 但是, 誰在乎呢? 我並不想要在紐約客雜誌裡刊登廣告 同樣的, 大部分的工人並不想要 iPhone 他們的盤算不一樣 我在這家工廠應該待多久呢? 可以存多少錢呢? 要儲多少錢才能買層樓或車子呢 才能結婚, 或是讓我的小孩受教育呢?
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.
我認識的這些工人裡 與他們製造的產品中存在一種弔詭的關係 大概在我認識陸清敏 (譯) -- 阿敏的一年後 她邀請我到她一起回鄉 去過中國農曆春節 在火車途中, 她給我一件禮物: 一個咖啡色皮邊的 Coach 零錢包, 我謝謝她, 心想這應該是仿的 就像大部分東莞所賣的東西一樣 我們到她家後,她給了她媽媽另一件禮物 一個粉紅色 Dooney & Bourke 包包 幾天後, 她的姐姐也挽著 她的褐紫色的 LeSportsac 肩包 慢慢的, 我才理出頭緒, 原來這些包包 都是他們工廠生產的 而且每一件都是正品
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)
阿敏的姊姊告訴她的父母 "這個包包在美國要賣320美金" 她爸媽兩人都是農夫,看著這個皮包不發一語 "還不只這樣 -- Coach 即將推出一個新的系列 叫 2191, 每個要賣到6,000" 她頓了一下繼續說: "我不知道是6,000 美金還是人民幣, 無所謂啦, 就是6,000 嘛" (笑聲)
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."
阿敏姐姐的男朋友, 也跟她一起回到家鄉 過新年, 他說 "實在看不出值那麼多錢"
Min's sister turned to him and said, "Some people actually understand these things. You don't understand shit."
阿敏的姐姐轉向他說: "有些人對這些事很了解, 你啊? 你懂個屁"
(Laughter) (Applause)
(笑聲) (掌聲)
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.
在阿敏的世界裡, Coach 皮包有種奇妙詭異的價格基準 這些包包不是完全沒有價值, 但是卻與它的實際價格 差了十萬八千里, 因為幾乎他們認識的人裡面, 沒有人 想要花錢買一個, 或是知道它的真正售價 有次, 阿敏最大的姐姐有朋友結婚 她給了那朋友一個包包當作結婚禮物 另外一次, 在阿敏離開 皮包工廠後, 她的妹妹來探望她 並且帶了兩個 Coach 經典包當伴手禮
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."
我翻了其中一個包包的拉鍊夾 我看到一張有印有英文的卡片, 上面寫著 "美國經典, 創立於1941 年 在 1941 年, 一個裝滿美式棒球手套 的光亮銅盤 啟發 Coach 的創辦人 開發了一系列的手袋, 它們用上以製作棒球手套同樣奢華柔軟的皮革 6個熟練的皮革工人縫製了12個經典皮包 有著精準的比例, 快速的手藝 這些皮件新穎, 多功能, 很多女仕 都心儀, 一個新的美國經典就此誕生了"
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.
我很好奇馬克思會對阿敏和她的姊妹們 會有甚麼的評價 她們跟她們所生產的產品之間的關係 當中既複雜, 驚喜而且很有娛樂性 這肯定遠大於馬克斯可以想像 還有, 他對世界存續的看法和我們 視這些工人為匿名大眾的傾向 藉而令我們以為自己可以理解她們的真正想法
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.
我第一次遇到阿敏時,她剛剛18歲 當時她剛離開她第一份工作 那個在電子組裝工廠生產線上的崗位 接下來的兩年中, 我看著她換了 五個工作, 最後被一家作硬體的工廠 雇用於採購部門的肥缺 後來, 她嫁給了一個外省工人 然後搬到他的村落 生了兩個女兒 存了些錢, 買了一台二手別克轎車 (Buick) 給她自己 並買了一間公寓給她爸媽 她最近獨自回到東莞 並在作起重機的工廠找到了一份工作 暫時留她的先生和小孩 在村落裡
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."
不久前她寫了個郵件給我, 她說 "人應該在年輕時有雄心壯志, 以致到年老的時候再回頭看 才會感到沒有白活一場"
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.
遍及中國, 有1.5 億的勞動人口跟她一樣 當中三分之一是女性, 她們離開家鄉 到工廠, 飯店和餐廳裡 或是大城市的工地打工 總合起來, 她們構成歷史上最大的移民潮 而且這是全球化的一種體現, 連鎖反應開始於 一個中國的農村 最後到了我們口袋裡的 iPhone, 我們腳上的Nike 和我們手上拿著的 Coach 包 這樣的過程改變了以億計的人 她們的工作、婚姻、生活和想法 其中只有少數人 想要回到以前的生活方式
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.
當我剛到東莞時, 我很擔心 長時間與這些工人一起會令人沮喪 另外我也擔心, 不會有甚麼新鮮事發生在她們身上 或是她們也沒有甚麼好跟我分享的 相反的, 我發現這些年輕女孩們倒是非常聰明而且有趣 非常勇敢, 大方 藉著向我敘述她們的生活 她們教會我很多有關工廠 及中國的事, 並且讓我了解到如何在這個世界生存
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.
這是阿敏給我的 Coach 包 就是坐火車去她家鄉拜訪時, 她給我的那個 我隨時帶著這個包來提醒我 我與我文章裡的這個女孩的連結 不是經濟上的, 而是在人的本質上的連結 只能用記憶而非金錢上來測量 這個包包也提醒我 很多你坐在辦公室 或圖書館 憑空想像的事情 不見得會跟你真正走出去 所體驗到的世界是一樣
Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)
謝謝 (掌聲) (掌聲)
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?
基斯.安達臣: 謝謝, 萊斯利 (張彤禾的英文名), 你這見解 是我們很多人從來沒有想過的 但我很好奇, 如果你有一分鐘 可以跟蘋果公司的生產部主管談話 你想說甚麼?
Leslie Chang: One minute?
張彤禾: 一分鐘?
CA: One minute. (Laughter)
基斯.安達臣: 一分鐘. (笑聲)
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.
張彤禾: 你知道嗎, 真正讓我感動的是 這些工人的積極性、自發性、 隨機應變的能力, 而讓我印象最深刻的是 她們最想要的是教育, 去學習 因為她們大部分都來自很窮的家庭 她們通常在初中一、二年級就離開學校了 她們的父母有一部分是文盲 她們來到城市時, 就只能靠她們自己 假日的晚上, 她們上電腦課程 上英文課程, 學的都是一些很基礎很基本的東西 例如 Word 文件的輸入 說簡單的英文 所以, 如果你真的想要幫助這些工人 可以舉辦這類小的, 目標明確的, 很務實的課程開始 在這些學校, 你會看到 你的所有工人會更上一層樓 因此希望她們會跟蘋果公司一起成長 而你可以幫助她們在社會上流動 和自我成長 當你問這些工人時, 這些就是她們想要的 她們不會說 "浴室的水要熱一點, 我想要個好一點的房間, 我要一台電視機" 我的意思是, 當然有這些東西是好 可是這不是她們待在城市裡的原因 她們並不是太在意這些東西
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?
基斯.安達臣: 她們有跟妳說過甚麼讓你覺得 事情很艱辛很不開心, 還是有些 自我成長的故事, 又或者一些隨時間 變得更好的事情?
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.
張彤禾: 是啊, 當然有 當然有, 我的意思是說, 你知道的 很有趣的是, 因為我花了基本上兩年的時間 住在東莞這個城市 這些時間, 你可以看到每個人生活都起了極大的變化 往上, 往下, 往旁邊 但整體上還是變好 如果你花夠長的時間, 總是變好的. 我遇到 一個搬來這城市10年的人 他現在基本上已是這個城市的中產階級 所以軌道總是往上的 只是你初來這個城市時 很難察覺的, 因為每個人看起來都很窮 而且情急拼命的, 不過那不是實際的情況 當然, 工廠的環境是很艱困 不是你或我可以想做的工作 不過在他們看來, 他們家鄉的生活 比這個更嚴峻, 而他們去的地方 比家鄉有更多的希望, 我只想 將他們心裡所想的陳述給你們 這未必跟你心裡所認為的完全一致
CA: Thanks so much for your talk. Thank you very much. (Applause)
基斯.安達臣: 十分感謝你的演講 非常感謝大家 (掌聲)