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guangzhou kangle village and lujiang village are adjacent to each other and are famous "garment-making villages".

qige (pseudonym) once recorded his experience of earning 2,033 yuan on this day, which attracted attention and people called him the "daily earning god". but in his opinion, different from the "sanhe god", this title is a compliment to his ability to make money.

a few days ago, in an interview with jiupai news, he recalled that on the way home, although he felt sore in his hands and waist, "the wind was sweet."

the recruitment street, which runs through the two urban villages of kangle and lujiang, is like a heart and artery, linking the country's largest textile trading center, zhongda textile business district. it attracts a large number of migrant workers with its unique "short-term piecework" model.

【1】some people buy 20,000 pieces of clothing per month on average

wang yinghua (pseudonym), 51 years old, has been working as a daily wage worker in kanglu district for 12 years. her main business is "hemming" (when finishing the edges of clothes, the raw edges are folded twice to make them clean, and then the visible lines are sewn).

with this job, she bought two houses in her hometown of xiangyang, hubei, and also bought a car for her son. a few years ago, she sold a house in her hometown that was originally intended for her son's wedding house, but because of the bad location and the fact that it was on the top floor, it was too cold in winter and too hot in summer, making it uncomfortable to live in.

i spent 130,000 yuan to buy it and sold it for more than 400,000 yuan, and put the remaining money into a fixed deposit.

her husband used to work as a security guard, but now he works as a welder and earns more than 200 yuan a day. wang yinghua feels that her husband is the type of person who cannot stand being patient.

the 31-year-old son works at a pig farm in his hometown, earning more than 5,000 yuan a month. he and his wife and 5-year-old child all live in his wife’s parents’ home.

this year, her son and his family came to guangzhou to celebrate the spring festival with her, and once again asked wang yinghua to buy him a new house in his hometown. wang yinghua said that after the money from the sale of the house was taken out, she could give him the full amount to buy it, and told her son not to always "live off his parents".

she also hoped that he would pay more attention to her and her husband, like when her husband was sick and hospitalized, he would come to visit. because of this, she blocked her son's wechat for a period of time.

the income of daily workers in the garment industry has obvious seasonal fluctuations. in the off-season, the price of a piece of clothing is 40 cents or 50 cents, and she can earn 5,000 to 6,000 yuan a month; in the peak season, she can earn 70 cents or 80 cents per piece, and earn about 10,000 yuan a month. on average, she rolls about 20,000 pieces of clothing every month. during the busiest period of the year, during the winter and spring, she can occasionally earn nearly 20,000 yuan a month.

august is the off-season for garment manufacturing in kanglu district. at the door of a chaoshan noodle shop, several bosses parked their electric bikes on the roadside to recruit workers. various summer clothes and recruitment signs were hung on the baskets of the electric bikes. the recruitment signs listed the types of tailoring jobs recruited today: "four-line, waist wrap, tail, electric scissors..."

wang yinghua arrived here at 10 o'clock in the morning. she was wearing a clean pink short-sleeved shirt and black sweatpants. she had just dyed her hair burgundy a few days ago. she had a pair of black sports headphones hanging around her neck and a silver ring and jade bracelet on her left hand that she had bought herself.

lujiang village recruitment street. photo by yan huayang of jiupai news

she saw a boss driving an electric car to recruit "hemming" people. before the car stopped, someone sat on the back seat without asking the price and asked the boss to take him back to the workshop. wang yinghua thought it was funny. what if the clothes were not easy to make and the income for one hour was not up to expectations, and the trip was in vain.

she sat at the door of the store playing with her phone, occasionally glancing at the crowd on the roadside, occasionally joining them to pick up clothes and ask questions, without being impatient. now, she is not as hardworking as when she first came, and the days of working more than ten hours a day are gone forever.

now she is over 50 years old, she owns a house and a car, and the issue that she was most worried about, her son getting married, has been resolved. last year, she had paid pension insurance premiums for 15 years under her personal account.

since going to work in the kanglu area of ​​guangzhou, wang yinghua has rented a house of five or six square meters near lujiang village with three fellow villagers. the monthly rent is 500 yuan, with two bunk beds. the person sleeping on the lower bunk has to pay 25 yuan more. wang yinghua sleeps on the lower bunk.

because they were reluctant to install air conditioning, even if they turned on the fan in the summer, their clothes would still be a little wet when they woke up in the morning. at night, they would rather be called by the boss to rush to work, because the factory is cooler and they can earn an extra 20 cents for each piece of clothing. the four of them turned up the volume of their cell phones at the same time, fearing that the boss would come to their door at any time.

last year, wang yinghua moved out of the four-person room and moved into a single room with a monthly rent of 600 yuan. she purchased an air conditioner, a water heater, and a wardrobe. due to limited space, she had to place various cooking utensils by the window, and she usually cooked outdoors.

wang yinghua once brought her sister-in-law to work here, but she couldn't adapt to the pace here and felt that she had to find trouble every day, so she eventually went to work in the factory. wang yinghua's experience is that if you are diligent and do a good job, and build a good reputation, the boss will leave you his phone number and call you directly next time there is work. although it is hard work, the treatment is better than farming in her hometown or working in a factory.

lujiang village recruitment street. photo: huang jialiang, jiupai news

【2】“dohave toif you are unhappy, you can fire your boss at any time."

brother qi (pseudonym) is more familiar with the way of survival here. he is 31 years old and from ganzhou, jiangxi province. he is a small "celebrity" here and has 150,000 followers on his personal social media account.

at noon, after eating a bowl of pork trotter rice at a fast food restaurant, he squeezed into a crowd and took a light yellow long skirt from the electric bike basket to examine it carefully. "it's 55 cents a piece," the boss said firmly. after hesitating for a few minutes, qi ge decided to take another look. the unit price was not quite what he expected.

brother qi is looking at clothes. photo by yan huayang from jiupai news

another place is a pink striped shirt, the price is 5.5 yuan. "the sleeves need to be slit, and the collar needs to be made after folding," brother qi said to his colleague who was asking about the shirt, holding the shirt, "it's 1.5 yuan less now (than before), it's not easy to do."

there was also a white short-sleeved shirt with sleeves and collars folded on both sides. the price was 1.3 yuan. brother qi looked at it for a long time and left. he shook his head and said, "if i don't need collars, i can work from today to this time tomorrow and make money. but with the collar, it's only 1.3 yuan, which is not cost-effective."

to qige, that day seemed to be a fruitless day. he went to several other companies one after another, but none of them seemed suitable. he moved yesterday and did not go out to look for work. it rained heavily the day before yesterday, so he did not go out. fortunately, he found two suitable jobs in the afternoon after the rain stopped. he worked from 4 am to 11 pm and earned 474 yuan.

here, choosing the right job often takes up a lot of time in the day.

there are four or five people surrounding almost every "electric car" job opening. the young and middle-aged applicants have their own specialties. brother qi is good at "flat sewing" (sewing one or more layers of sewing material). every time he picks up a piece of clothing and examines it carefully, he estimates whether the technology required to make the clothing can match his own efficiency, and uses this to evaluate the value of his labor.

brother qi once set a record of earning 2,033 yuan a day on this street, which is also the origin of his "fame".

one day in april 2024, during the peak season, a young boss had to rush a large batch of goods, including white t-shirts with hems on both sides and double waist stitching. the original wage was 80 cents per piece, but because it was raining and he couldn't recruit anyone, the price was raised to 1 yuan per piece.

qi ge went to work at 7 pm and finished 36 pieces in half an hour. he felt that this job was worthwhile: he earned 72 yuan an hour, and if he worked faster, he could make 100 yuan an hour.

after getting off work at midnight, he went back to his rental house, took a shower and lay down. it was already 2 a.m. the thunder and rain woke him up at 4 a.m. after that, he thought about the high price of this job, and after much hesitation, he decided to get up and go back to the small garment factory on the second floor, planning to do as much as he could. he arrived at the factory at 6 a.m. and worked hard until 6 p.m., 12 hours plus the previous 5 hours, a total of 17 hours, and he finally made 2,033 pieces.

on the way home, although brother qi felt sore in his hands and waist, he said, "the wind is sweet."

after finishing a day's work, the boss will pay the wages immediately. he likes this kind of instant feedback and can clearly feel that the money is earned through his own hard work.

there is a great deal of freedom to choose one's employer. once, he stared at his watch and was not satisfied with the amount of work he had done in an hour. he told his boss and unilaterally cancelled the "contract". the boss was also accustomed to this and, like him, immediately went back to the street to look for another partner.

the boss, sister mei (pseudonym), has a deep understanding of this.

the labor mechanism here is based on verbal agreements, and both parties must be honest and polite to survive. her workshop in lujiang village is over 200 square meters and has more than 30 machines. every time she goes out to recruit workers, she always adds in a friendly voice, "we have an agreement here, so don't run away."

but "running away" still happens occasionally. one evening, the recruiter did not explain clearly that the batch of pants being cut today also had a process of rolling up the trouser legs, so a day-paid worker left after just a few minutes. there were also people who ran away without saying a word, and did not even ask for their wages, which amused sister mei.

the most tiring recruitment was when sister mei ran back and forth eight times a day just to make the production process of a piece of clothing run normally.

an older woman shared her experience, "if the boss treats you badly in any factory, just fire him." she then said, "we are free. if you are unhappy with your job or don't like your boss, just quit and find another factory after you finish your work."

【3】the lights on the job recruitment street are bright day and night

59-year-old chen yun (pseudonym) works in the "tail" of clothing. the "tail" is the last link in clothing production in kanglu area. it is the abbreviation for the finishing work after a piece of clothing is finished, including sticking notes on clothes, putting tags on clothes, cutting thread ends, packaging, etc. the money is generally calculated by the hour. in recent months, the price per hour is 22 yuan, and in march and april it can reach about 27 or 28 yuan.

in the evening, her daily work just started. she rented a dormitory with 12 people sharing bunk beds near kangle village. after waking up at 5 pm, she took a shower, went out to eat, and went to the job market to look for work.

affected by the off-season, not only are there fewer bosses recruiting workers, but the prices at the "tail end" are not very high. at around 8 o'clock in the evening, chen yun was still sitting on the roadside of kangle village street with five or six other colleagues.

chen yun (second from right) came out to look for a job. photo: huang jialiang, jiupai news

before coming here to work, chen yun and her husband made a living by farming in their hometown of hubei. both of her sons have started their own families and advised her to stay at home and not go out to work, but chen yun felt that she could still earn money and it would also reduce the burden on her children. the work of "tail" was not heavy and was much easier than farm work, but it was not good to have a reversed day and night schedule.

during the off-season, chen yun's monthly income is 5,000 to 6,000 yuan, and during the peak season, it is 7,000 to 8,000 yuan. she happily shared her latest income, when a female boss transferred 600 yuan to her on wechat, which she earned by working 26 hours in two days.

at 10 o'clock in the evening, kangle village was still brightly lit and bustling with people. seeing the bosses driving over in their electric cars one after another, the day workers immediately surrounded them.

a woman sitting next to chen yun received a job and headed to the factory with her bag on her back. later, when batches of clothes were finished, more bosses would come to recruit workers. chen yun would take a job until 3 a.m. at the latest, and she would usually work until 10 a.m. and then go back to the dormitory to rest.

from day to night, people who are familiar with the job recruitment streets of kangle village and lujiang village know that the lights here will never fade away.