The Workers

On nearly any street here in Beijing, you'll find a skyscraper rising, a building being razed, a new facade attaching to an existing structure. These Chinese construction scenes are an other-worldly sight. I have been fascinated with the workers for years.

They are gaunt, sinewy men in thin street clothes. Most wear traditional cloth slippers and army-surplus pants or pleated khakis, often rolled up to the knee. A few wear hard hats. Many are old, or appear to be--creased skin and rounded shoulders. Others look barely teenaged. At night, some sleep on the sidewalk under corrugated tin and tarpaulins. Others sleep in bunkbeds on the jobsite, I assume working in shifts 24 hours a day. Sometimes they ride the subway with bedrolls and washbins, eyeing the Beijingers in slick blazers and sundresses.

The workers are often quiet and meek in public, like countyfolk in the big city. Many of these workers are probably from the interior. For all of it's growth and glory, China suffers from a serious urban/rural, coastal/interior disparity. I've talked with at least one educated Chinese who thinks this inequality will be China's undoing.

The massive construction projects in Beijing are veiled behind fences and green netting --entire city blocks of green as high as you can crane your neck. The workers move behind these veils. Sometimes a thousand pings can be heard as they pick with hammer and chisel--much of this work is done by hand. Sometimes I see men move along the tubular scaffoldings, often without plank-boards. Smaller construction projects are done on the open street. I shield my own eyes from the welders and protect my own face against splinters from the sledgehammers. Saturday, Bonnie and I ate at a restaurant where we walked around dirt piles and building materials, past the arc-welder and under the scaffolding to enter the building. While we ate at the window, sparks fell from grinder above.

Tuesday night in the train station I saw a young man alone and awkward in the station, crouching in an ATM cubicle like it was a haven. He was splattered to the knee in mud and was obviously a worker. He seemed disoriented among the Beijingers. Probably some foreman or relative told him to stay put for awhile.

If I were a smarter and more diligent man, I'd find access and photograph their world.

(posted by Jim)