Do outlaws deserve much sympathy when facing problems? The answer will influence how readers react to Hsiao-Hung Pai's well-researched expose, Chinese Whispers, The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of Labour (2008, Penguin Books, 262 pages).
By focusing on a few illegal immigrants from China living and working in England, the author highlights the difficulties for hundreds of thousands. “This book is about the parallel society, the hidden army of labor that carries on its existence far behind the façade of the British high street....,” she said. “We see them all around us. They flow into Britain, as we know, in huge numbers from many countries in the world. The current estimate is that the ‘illegal’ population is somewhere between 700,000 and a million. They make a fiscal contribution to the British economy of one billion pounds a year, selling their labor all over the agriculture, hospitality and construction industries.”
After paying small fortunes to be smuggled to “a land of promise”, the newcomers crowd into dilapidated houses, accept modest pay and work torturously long hours -- at factories, building sites, restaurants, farms and even brothels -- for employers eager to exploit them. “One of the waiters summed up the situation when I asked him how he'd describe his work in Chinatown. ‘There is only one word,’ he said. ‘Harsh.’ ”
Outside of Chinatown isn't better. “Here, the workers had to struggle not only with the workload but also with the deafening sound of the machinery and the suffocating heat and polluting dust from the burning of plastic in the moulding process. Their concentration had to be absolute. There was not a moment to stand back or rest. Every second counted if the production target was to be met. The workers had no health-and-safety training, and had no idea about the risks of working with the chemicals used in the coloring process.”
Powerless to complain or fight back for fear of arrest and deportation, these workers whisper among themselves and keep struggling. “Qin shook his head sadly. ‘The greatest sickness in the Chinese culture is our deep-rooted habit of enduring exploitation, enduring slavery. Think about it! If we all had the courage to down tools and expose the situation, it could work. But, instead, we compete against each other; some of us turn into oppressors ourselves – and we become more and more defenceless.”
Worse, criminal gangs prey on these people. “They beat me up again. But I simply had no more to give.... I left the flat, half-dead after that ordeal. But I couldn't report the kidnapping to the police for fear of deportation.”
Sadly, there's corruption and racism too. “When they arrived back at the flat in Liverpool they saw some English graffiti on the wall of the house: ‘Fuck off, Chinkies.’ Ah-Hau couldn't read the words but his flatmates told him they were hostile gestures from local youths, who had nothing to do with them but just hated them anyway.”
Global issues like illegal immigration and black-market labor make Chinese Whispers topical and timely. Motivated by being Chinese too, Pai nobly tackles this subject by interviewing the “hidden” workers and even going “undercover” to live and work with them. “We wandered the streets of Thetford. I noticed, once again, how close, yet how distant, we were from the locals going about their daily lives with their shopping bags and their dogs on the lead. Such a tranquil life, theirs seemed. The two worlds crossed each other without the locals knowing anything of ours.”
The undercover author falters at “work”. Bosses tend to scold or dismiss her for being too slow -- not productive enough. “I was furious. ‘You didn't show me how to start the job, and you didn't even give me time to get used to the place!’
He was taken aback by my reaction. Chinese workers weren't supposed to have the courage to argue, nor were they supposed to be able to speak English.”
Later, Pai hesitates to depart. “I was going back to the normal world, the one with comfort and opportunities. I was leaving my friends behind in another world, the one where exploitation and casual inhumanity are commonplace. They had to continue to trudge their lonely path in that dark world below.”
Probably every reader has encountered undocumented workers and consumed the products they help to process. The author successfully humanizes them: “They are fathers, mothers, sons and daughters with all the feelings of love, worry and aspirations for the family that everyone has, although their families happen to be thousands of miles away.”
Pai makes less progress toward another goal, to stir sympathy for the illegal workers, because they're not at all entirely innocent victims. Recruiters, agencies and employers violate laws in dealing with the shadowy migrants, but so do the workers by their presence in Britain. They're economic migrants seeking better lives, disregarding countless rules. “Gao was not alone in this feeling of guilt. Every other Chinese worker here was using a fake name, in and outside of work, in order to avoid the risk of exposing his or her status. Sometimes the older members of the team would forget their fake names, or blurt out their real names by mistake. Adopting a false identity was hard.”
The dilemma begins with harsh, hopeless situations in China. “The homing instinct in humans is strong. Things must be pretty bad in a country if a father or mother decides to leave his or her family for years and live illegally and namelessly in an unknown country, owing a fortune to the moneylender who made the journey possible.”
Yet lucrative temptation beckons. “Abroad, you could earn 10 times as much as in China. Ten times as much! How could he resist such a prospect?”
As one man explains, “People asked why we left a booming city like Shanghai. We wouldn't be here if we had swimming pools at home, would we? The only reason the three of us left our homes is poverty. We all have families to feed.”
Born in Taiwan, Pai legally entered Britain in 1991. As a journalist, she specializes in stories about the Chinese community. Living in London, she works for the Guardian, the New Statesman and other titles. This is her first book.
Chinese Whispers is insightful and important, but not always for the exact reasons the author imagines. She raises issues that deserve attention. This book needed to be written. Readers will gain knowledge and insights, despite likely disagreeing with some of what Pai and her subjects say.
Approval rating: 63 per cent.
For more information: www.penguin.com
(September 12, 2011)
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