MODERN TIMES MAKING A MARK AT MIGRANT WORKERS’ MARKETPLACE Sanhe was once a mecca for people seeking work far from home, but the decades-old employment exchange in South China now faces an uncertain future, as Luo Weiteng reports from Shenzhen, Guangdong.
They look abandoned, forgotten and lost in another part of the world, but they aren’t desolate, at least not yet. Since the start of the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, migrant workers from across the country have played a major role in the economic rise of Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Over the years, millions have poured into the city’s Sanhe labor marketplace, having endured long rail journeys from their hometowns.
They staked their futures in Sanhe as a stepping stone to riches, and working tiring, lowpaid jobs as Shenzhen raced forward with unbridled economic, technological and industrial development.
Nestled in Longhua subdistrict, Sanhe takes its name from one of the twin-pillar employment agencies in the area — Sanhe Human Resources Co and Haixinxin Human Resources Co. The agencies spearheaded a group of more than 10 companies that have sent millions of workers to a wide range of labor-intensive markets feeding industries in Shenzhen and across the Pearl River Delta. As a result, Sanhe became a buzzword for almost every migrant worker setting off on a journey “down south”.
Amid the bustle of urban villages, or “villages in the city”, the marketplace is also a shelter for debt-ridden and internet-addicted young people who are tired of the monotonous work on assembly lines and have chosen to pursue an unexamined life working as temporary laborers and are paid by the day. They call themselves Sanhe
or “gods”. It’s meant to be self-mocking, but the name indicates high self-esteem and is a comment on their ability to make a living without having to work like dogs.
‘Lightning’ jobs
Most — unskilled, and with no savings or academic qualifications and, sometimes, no proper identification papers — would idle away the days, sometimes for years, if they were not packed off on “lightning” job assignments arranged by employment agencies.
However, it seems the tide is turning. Local authorities are cracking down on illegal labor recruitment, and land-hungry developers have set their sights on Longhua. Now, working in cities around Shenzhen appears to be losing its allure among migrant workers who have to choose between heading home and hanging on.
“This winter, Longhua has become a whole lot quieter as the city planners clamped down on an illegal web of job recruitment in Sanhe and renovated nearby urban villages,” said Fang Zhaozhao, a longtime Longhua resident. “This may be just the tip of the iceberg.”
Longhua is at the mercy of change as Shenzhen evolves beyond its manufacturing roots and looks to high-tech industries and the high-end service economy for future growth. For unskilled workers, this may herald the end of a better life far from home in Shenzhen — a top-tier metropolis that was essentially built on migrant labor.
The sprawling city of 12 million people has seen just 34 percent of its population granted permanent residence, or
under the national household registration system. Those without are usually migrants who left their homes in search of better prospects in southern China’s Pearl River Delta — the country’s traditional manufacturing heartland which offers all sorts of labor-intensive job opportunities.
Scratching a living
For decades, Shenzhen has been a vital part of the global supply chain as foreign enterprises outsourced their businesses in search of a cheaper, sustainable workforce and lower production costs. That allowed migrant workers to eke out a living in the city and feed their families in the impoverished inland provinces.
At the turn of the century, the city’s migrant worker population peaked in the downtown. As manufacturers arrived, such as Foxconn Technology Group which relocated its largest factory at the Longhua Science and Technology Park and set up a recruiting station at Sanhe, Longhua became a new congregation point for migrant workers.
It became a magnet and transfer station for unskilled laborers across Shenzhen and nationwide.
Located in Bao’an district — one of two areas formerly outside the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone — Longhua is one of just a few places in the city with a plentiful supply of cheap labor and rock-bottom living costs.
Xu Bin works at an electronics factory in Shangtang, just two metro stops from Sanhe.
The 30-something works 12 hours-plus, seven days a week, earning up to 5,000 yuan ($756) a month. It’s a sum Xu dared not contemplate when he idled away his days at Sanhe, his first stop when arrived in Shenzhen from his native Henan province seven years ago.
Snaking through the dense, tangled warrens of the urban villages nearby, he was shocked by the incredibly low living costs in the area, which is dominated by small and mediumsized businesses.
Urban villages have long served as enclaves of cheap housing for the migrant workers who have supported Shenzhen’s economic rise.
“Thanks to the lively urban villages, I’ve had no difficulty finding internet bars that charge 1.50 yuan per hour and 6 yuan for a night.” Xu said.
“Shabby hotels offer a bed for just 15 yuan and a single room for 30 yuan a night. At the Shuangfeng Noodle Restaurant, a bowl of noodles sets you back just 4 yuan, and it has never raised its prices. This is a wonderland for low-paid workers. It’s equally a playground for job-shy people who just muddle along and idle their time away.”
Second generation
Xu’s parents were among the first generation of rural workers who left their farms to work on assembly lines or construction sites in coastal cities. That generation is about to retire.
When Xu replaced his parents as part of the second generation of migrant workers, he refused to repeat their dull lives.
“Working in factories means you are more or less chained to production lines. You punch in, punch out, and repeat the same cycle the next day. I just can’t help asking, ‘What’s the point of living a life like that?’” he said.
He ended up signing up at Longhua’s “Sanhe club” as an “on call” worker, but he threw away five years, lost and paralyzed by guilt.
“By the time I realized I could not do that anymore, it was already the winter of 2015. I fled Sanhe and found a fulltime job in Shangtang, putting an end to that unbearable existence,” he said. Fang Zhaozhao, long-term Longhua resident of decent young people coming here with dreams of landing plum jobs. But, the weak-minded fall prey to laziness and end up as so-called
He urged those who rely on his eatery for three cheap meals a day to seriously look for work. However, he probably won’t see them make the change because a redevelopment plan is in place.
Vanke, one of China's largest real estate developers which is based in Shenzhen, plans to use the area as a testing ground for long-term rental apartments, with rents ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 yuan a month — well beyond the reach of most migrant workers.
Fading glory
As the area succumbs to modernity, it won’t take long for the internet bars, cheap hotels and small stores that have made Sanhe a paradise for dirt-poor idlers to call it a day, according to Yang.
He sees Sanhe’s fading from the scene as manifest destiny; an inevitable part of Shenzhen’s ambition to build new, gleaming residential and commercial districts to reflect its stunning rise.
However, even in the midst of such unbridled development, consideration must be given to the plight of the migrant workers.
“During its heyday, the three-story offices of Sanhe Human Resources were a sea of people. But now, the bustle of recruitment can only be seen on the ground floor,” said Liu Yong, a who has lived in Sanhe for a long time.
Fielding Chen Shiyuan, an Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong, said the ever-widening wealth gap is no excuse for people’s choice of underemployment and even unemployment.
Despite that, the chasm between the vast virtual world depicted by the internet and smartphone, and the migrant workers’ limited real-world choices are a real issue.
That issue looms large as migrant workers are exposed to, and overwhelmed by, inequality — it is a time bomb that has its roots in Shenzhen’s meteoric rise, he said.
About 35 years ago, Shenzhen was a sleepy fishing village. However, since 1979, when it was designated as the country’s first special economic zone, the city has become the showpiece of the fastest urbanization in history.
“Though ‘Let some people get rich first’ was the famous instruction for China’s market reforms, it’s hard to deny that our society is becoming worryingly unequal. One of the most extreme and often overlooked side effects has been Sanhe,” Chen said.
In Longhua, it’s almost impossible to find a new housing development with apartments that cost less than 60,000 yuan per square meter.
“That figure may sound unimaginable and meaningless to low-paid migrant workers.
“It has become increasingly difficult for second- and thirdgeneration unskilled, low-tech immigrants to find a place in Shenzhen, as the city no longer makes its fortune by churning out cheap, labor-intensive clothes, electronics and toys for foreign brands,” Fang said.
“Those deemed good-fornothing and incapable of creating value and making a contribution may end up being abandoned to their fate. That includes people at Sanhe, who are being discarded and forgotten.”
News of Sanhe’s sagging fortunes has trickled in almost every other month this year.
“I’ve heard the labor marketplace is now on the wane, and the urban villages in the central district of Shenzhen are disappearing to make way for lucrative commercial and residential projects,” Xu said. “I’ve also heard that the days are numbered for so-called low-end immigrants like me in some cities.”
But Shenzhen should be different, he said.
Fang hopes that Shenzhen’s craze for skyscrapers will never come at the price of excluding migrant workers.
“A combination of urban villages, the labor marketplace and Sanhe reflects the other half of the world in Shenzhen. We should never lose our awe and understanding of the city’s dizzying economic growth.”
A combination of urban villages, the labor marketplace and Sanhe reflects the other half of the world in Shenzhen.”
Contact the writer at sophia@chinadailyhk.com