Abstract
Reforms in China’s household registration system over the past few decades have allowed vast number of rural residents to enter the city in search of work. Young factory workers are subject to a high level of discipline within the industrial regime. The dearth of time, space, and money has one practical implication for workers’ love lives: often enough, it is difficult to practice intimacy, and when they do try, it may have to be in public places. In January 2013, a group of 30 photos appeared on ifeng.com, an online platform for Phoenix TV and one of China’s best known Internet portals. Entitled “Rural Migrants’ Love in Dongguan,” these photos “went viral” within a short period of time, appearing on many websites in China and beyond. Through a juxtaposition of public debates online and some workers’ own views on these images, this article discusses the cultural politics of class and visibility in the digital age.
Introduction
Reforms in China’s household registration system over the past few decades have allowed vast number of rural residents to enter the city in search of work. A Chinese Census published in 2013 reveals that the number of internal migrants had reached 262 million, with as many as 42.8% of them born after 1980. A recent statistic indicates that 80% of the entire migrant labor force is single (Sun, 2014). Young single workers dominate industrial cities such as Dongguan in the Pearl River Delta and Suzhou in the Yangtze River Delta.
Young factory workers are subject to a high level of discipline within the industrial regime, which works to turn “a young and rural body into an industrialized and productive labourer” on the assembly line (Pun, 2005, p. 77; Pun & Smith, 2007). Most earn the legal minimum wage of around 2000 yuan per month or 3000 yuan if they are prepared to work extra shifts, 6 days a week. This means that leisure time, something that is taken for granted by the middle class, is scarce. Also, as strangers in the city, these workers live either in factory dormitory rooms, which sleep up to eight people, or in a small rented room. In either case, personal space is small, and privacy is a rare commodity. In some cases, even married workers opt to live in the single-sex dormitory in order to cut down their living expenses.
The dearth of time, space, and money has one practical implication for workers’ love lives: often enough, it is difficult to practice intimacy, and when they do try, it may have to be in public places. In January 2013, a group of 30 photos appeared on ifeng.com, an online platform for Phoenix TV and one of China’s best known Internet portals. 1 Entitled “Rural Migrants’ Love in Dongguan,” these photos “went viral” within a short period of time, appearing on many websites in China and beyond. An attempt to gauge interest in the photos 2 months after they went online yielded 220,000 search engine results using the title of this group of pictures. By February 2015, googling the same title saw that number more than double, reaching 437,000.
These pictures show workers in intimate but not overtly sexual situations: talking quietly, holding hands, kissing, embracing, or simply sitting close to each other with their limbs intertwined. Other photos show couples going about their everyday lives, sharing a moment together while looking at their phones, riding bikes, shopping, and even washing clothes. The sharing of these intimate moments all takes place in public spaces in the industrial areas of Dongguan where workers live and work—on the lawn of a park, on a bench by the roadside, at a table outside a snack bar, in the community library, in a public phone booth, and in a city street. While some women wear casual or even sexy clothes after work or on their day off, others in the photos wear factory uniforms.
What lies behind the ubiquitous practice of public intimacy among young workers in industrial zones? What are the ramifications—both physical and symbolic—of being “exposed” in public in this way? And what does the enthusiastic but galvanized response to these images, when juxtaposed with workers’ own words, tell us about the cultural politics of visibility in the digital age? In what follows, I address these questions through a juxtaposition of public debates online and some workers’ own views. 2 Against the backdrop of this juxtaposition, I ask how contestation over a number of notions—privacy, love, and moral transgression—affords us a glimpse into the shape and nature of China’s cultural politics of class.
Privacy—is it a big deal?
According to ifeng.com’s own counting, as of January 2015, 37,807 people browsed the online discussions of the “Love in Dongguan” photos, with 735 registered users posting comments. Despite the extremely popular nature of these photos, the identity of the photographer remains unknown to most people. A couple of months after the original posting of the photos, Yangcheng Wanbao (Yangcheng Evening Post), a metropolitan tabloid from Guangzhou Province, published a story entitled “Dongguan Dagong Workers’ Love May Move People to Tears but Photographing People Kissing May Have Infringed Their Right to Privacy” (Wen, 2013). The journalist sought the opinion of a senior figure from a local legal firm who, upon seeing the photos, pointed out that posting them online would have helped boost the visibility of the websites in question, and they could also easily be considered to be in breach of individuals’ right to own their own image.
Some web users indeed raised questions as to whether the photographer was in breach of people’s rights. Some asked, “Do you have the right to take these images? Be careful; some of these pictures may end up wrecking a perfectly happy family” (Wen, 2013, p. A24). “A nice moment of intimacy, but can’t they be left alone?” One user who calls himself “Lansedelan” asks, I’d like to know this: did the photographer secure the agreement of the people in the pictures before putting them online? Or is it simply that the privacy of these people doesn’t matter because they are merely rural migrant workers? (Lansedelan, January 17, 2013)
3
I showed these images to my interviewees in Shenzhen, many of whom were workers from Foxconn, one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers, and I asked them to comment on their legal and ethical implications regarding privacy. Few seemed perturbed. What one young woman in her early 20s said is fairly representative of the majority of my interviewees: “I would not want to see images of myself published online like this, but I don’t think it—taking the pictures and publishing them online with permission—was a big deal. I’m OK with that.” 4 This is echoed by a young male worker also in his early 20s, whose remark is a salutary reminder that the invasion of privacy may be more offensive to those who usually take their right to privacy for granted: “We don’t have much privacy in our lives anyway. That’s why we do it—being intimate in public. I see it everywhere. It’s so commonplace.” More than one worker saw these photos as a “good thing,” as “they draw people’s attention to our everyday lives and make more people aware of our circumstances.” Juxtaposing online comments with workers’ remarks suggests that these comments may say more about the anxieties of the middle class than they do about the concerns of rural migrants themselves—even though they result from their defense of what they perceive to be rural migrant workers’ rights.
Is it real love?
While many of the repostings of the images have generated their own new commentaries and responses, it is the photographer’s own commentary that accompanied the original posting on ifeng.com which has generated the most sustained and spirited response: If China is the world’s factory, Dongguan in south China is one of the main shop floors. This city has witnessed countless youthful lives thrive and then decline, countless dreams born and then shattered. The love of countless dagong [worker] individuals is ordinary yet precious.
It is clear that to this photographer, love is incontrovertibly present in these images. However, in the same way that attitudes toward privacy may be class-specific, one’s view on who can embody legitimate desire is also informed by one’s class position. Online comments diverge widely over the question of rural migrants’ capacity for genuine love and romance. Among the many comments posted by registered users, the majority of them are one-liners, such as “so sweet”; “how romantic”; “beautiful feelings”; “love still exists”; “love knows no boundaries”; “they are so pure and innocent”; “such is love: ordinary but real, mundane but genuine”; “love does not discriminate against the poor; life is beautiful because love exists”; and “love is sweet, even without money.”
Endorsement and sympathy also came from outside the migrant worker community: they are so simple, so ordinary, and asking the world so little in return; bless them looking at these images, I feel a mixture of sadness, bitterness, and sweetness I can truly understand the hardships of an outsider in the city and their fleeting moments of contentedness and happiness; seeing these pictures makes me feel emotional; my heart goes out to you, my country fellows—you are the admirable workers of China! they are the mainstay of the urban economy; may the flower of their love bear sweet fruit!
However, while these images clearly promote inter-subjectivity across classes, they also have the capacity to further polarize class divisions. Instead of seeing romance in these images, some see pure lust. One post comments that Shenzhen and Dongguan are full of “wild love birds.” Criticism of such intimate acts is also implied in another post, which says that “most of these couples are after sex; love doesn’t really come into it.”
Besides questioning the capacity of younger workers for true love, some more trenchant criticisms are voiced along the lines of moral judgment, as evidenced in this comment: They are not interested in learning, they have no souls, they give free rein to their bodily desires. They feel no responsibility for themselves, their family, and their society. They seek nothing but a bit of sexual pleasure. What do they know about love? Morality and responsibility are strange concepts to them. Their existence threatens social harmony, and they are a disgrace to their parents, family, and society.
When my worker interviewees were presented with these images, their responses were instructive indeed. They neither wanted to romanticize the love life of the individuals in the photos, nor were they scandalized by them. To them, what was represented in these images was their everyday lives: “these are very familiar to me; I see people like this everywhere, all the time.” Some even said that they had “been there and done that”: “it’s nothing to make a fuss about.” Workers’ comments stand in sharp contrast to the galvanized and strong responses from online viewers of the photos—whether they be sympathetic or hostile. Again, this contrast seems to suggest a class-based anxiety about the existence of true love. Furthermore, the love life of rural migrants seems to present itself as a convenient catalyst for voicing class-based antagonisms.
Who is transgressive?
By now, it is clear that, while the photographer had hoped to capture touching moments of loving tenderness, others saw these same images and what they depicted as acts of moral transgression. One person says, I’m at a loss as to what to say about these images. Putting aside whether they are good or bad, I think women should pay some attention to their display of suzhi [personal quality]. You don’t have to wear designer brands, but it doesn’t look good to reveal too much of your body.
This criticism of “immodest” women is reinforced by another post, which says: “Love is sweet indeed, but if you want romance, you should go home and do it behind closed doors. One needs to behave in a civilized way in public, especially women.”
Criticisms of dagong individuals for their perceived lack of suzhi, manifesting itself in this case in their perceived indecency, bad taste, and uncivilized manners, are based on class as well as gender. This commentator’s offended sense of modesty is echoed by another commentator, who does not like to see young workers “kissing everywhere, littering, and making fools of themselves” or “sleeping in public places, and sitting in postures that lack modesty.” Another person concurs with this post, saying: “Indeed, they look too immodest. It doesn’t matter how pure and innocent you are, you’re still disappointing if you don’t have suzhi.” Also invoking the suzhi discourse, other commentators become more vitriolic: “You can tell at a glance they’re low life. Wearing flip-flops, a cigarette in his mouth, sitting cross-legged on a public bench. Scumbag behavior through and through.”
While workers were not overtly concerned with the issue of privacy, they strongly disagreed with the moral criticisms thrown at these individuals by online commentators. A few said that they personally would not behave in a too immodest way, such as kissing or being amorous in public, but people must understand that these acts are not morally transgressive and are perfectly understandable. One male worker defended the workers’ practice of being intimate in public: We don’t have time to go out, so we can only try to get together between shifts and during meal times. I can’t go to my girlfriend’s dorm as we’re not allowed to visit dorms of the opposite sex. We don’t have money to go to a café or a hotel to be alone together—not on regular basis, anyway.
This worker’s response makes it clear that, for workers, public intimacy is not a lifestyle choice; it is a necessity, and that as human beings, they are just as entitled to intimacy as everyone else, whether it be in public or in private. Another worker’s remark reminded us that what may really be transgressive about their behavior was not so much their purported immodesty in public, but rather their insistence on being intimate even though they did not have the capacity to purchase intimacy (Zelizer, 2007), or to engage in commodified—and therefore legitimate—forms of leisure and romance (Illouz, 1997), as this worker’s comment illustrates: It would be nice to get away on a trip, to go to a beach, a park, or even to see a movie or something, but all these things cost money—for transport, snacks, entry tickets, etc. All these cost too much money.
Discussion
The photographer of these images was Mr Zhan, a man in his 40s from Hubei Province who had been a worker in Dongguan and Shenzhen but who now works for a local magazine. Although he did not disclose his true identity in the context of this group of photos for fear of legal trouble, he is an accomplished photographer who has gained national, and to some extent, international, recognition for his photographs of rural migrant factory workers. 5 Mr Zhan’s full name is Zhan Youbin, and in an interview with the Beijing News in late 2014 on the publication of his photo collection “I Am a Rural Migrant” (Woshi Nongmingong), Zhan identified himself as a rural migrant photographer with 16 years’ experience working in a factory.
Elsewhere, in a prestigious professional photography publication in China, Zhan published the same group of photos and penned a brief account of the lives of rural migrant workers to accompany the images: As time goes by and young dagong people reach marriageable age, their co-workers, folks from the same village or the same town, and friends and relatives of their co-workers all become objects of their amorous desires. They meet, get to know each other, and get married. In this day and age when there’s a shortage of labor, some factories encourage workers to stay by providing conjugal accommodation … Those in love yearn for tenderness and warmth from each other. Due to their circumstances, their love can only unfold in public spaces near the factory, in the green parklands adjacent to the factory, and in parks that are free to all. They have their biological needs, and they cannot afford to worry about how they look to those who see them. Once married, they become more pragmatic. They are more interested in working extra shifts and making more money. It is only on their day off that couples get to have some well-earned rest.
If Mr Zhan’s photos had appeared only in a professional photography publication, and if he had been able to resist the temptation to share these images in the wider online world, he would have avoided the controversy and debates outlined here.
We have learned from this discussion that intimacy and romance are contested notions. And so are transgression and obscenity. What is romantic love for some may be obscene and morally transgressive for others. This contestation in large part hinges on a class-specific understanding of what constitutes a socially legitimate use of public spaces, which, in turn, is shaped, if not pre-determined, by socially stratified spatial practices.
With the growing use of smart phones and the ubiquitous access to social media via such devices, the contestation of these notions is increasingly mediatized. This process of mediatization is to some extent democratic, enabling marginalized groups to assert their presence and thereby facilitate cross-class understanding. At the same time, however, it also reinforces and accentuates the inequality that marks the relationships between classes.
Here, we see how the vulnerability of a marginalized existence and the precarity of its associated living circumstances are bound up with, and further reproduce, the vulnerability of these individuals in the symbolic domain. Central to this vulnerability is the sense of public exposure. Public visibility may be a political goal for subaltern groups, but public exposure is quite something else, most significantly because it renders marginalized groups doubly vulnerable. Young workers have to “talk about love” (tan lian ai) in exposed ways, having no access to private spaces that shelter and nurture intimacy. This means that they are at the mercy of the gaze of photographers as well as the judgmental looks of passers-by. Furthermore, when images of their public intimacy become widely circulated, they attract further unwanted censorial attention and prurient voyeurism—as well as some sympathetic responses. In the meantime, acts of intimacy are enjoyed by the middle class either in the privacy of their own homes, safely away from public scrutiny, or are performed conspicuously in commodified public spaces that urban society sets aside for “legitimate” expressions of intimacy. In either case, these are opportunities that are either “not for the likes of” rural migrant workers or simply unavailable to them.