Catshanghai

I have just finished Hsiao-Hung Pai’s compelling, but disturbing account of Chinese immigrant workers in the UK. Reading this book made me ashamed of my country and made me feel about the ugly face of globalisation.

According to Hsiao-Hung there are hundreds of thousands of Chinese people working in the UK without legal status. They are among the poorest paid as farm labourers, factory assemblers, cockle pickers, domestic live in helps, catering staff, sex workers, DVD sellers and builders.

Many Chinese migrant workers originate from Fujian, Guangdong, Heilonjiang and Shanghai. They overstay their business/ student visas or they are smuggled into the UK by criminal gangs for thousands of pounds, which their families must borrow from moneylenders in pursuit of better opportunities overseas. Too often these dreams are shattered by long hours for little money in poor, unsafe conditions and squalid overcrowded accommodation. The characters in this story have no access to legal protection and basic healthcare. When they are unpaid or even beaten by unscrupulous bosses or gangmasters they cannot file a report with the police. Chinese migants in the UK remain stoic and invisible while they move from job to job to pay off their debts and send money back to their families in their hometowns. Hsiao-Hung notes:

This book is about a parallel society, the hidden army of labour, that carries on its existence far behind the facade of the British high street. The people in this group are commonly known in the popular media as the ‘illegals’, but I prefer to think of them as the ‘undocumented’.

I was really moved by Hsiao-Hung’s book, because it was about people struggling to survive in very difficult circumstances. Data and numbers count for little when you are reading about suffering. Stories about individuals matter far more. Ah-Hua was selling DVDs for gangsters in Manchester while Ren was picking salad in Selsey. All of the characters in this book seem condemned to a very hard life of struggle, but there are glimmers of hope as Xiao Yun finds work in a beauty salon and Xiao Li gets recognition as a very capable chef.

Hsiao-Hung is a freelance journalist who grew up in Taiwan before moving to the UK as a graduate student in 1991. She managed to inflitrate these networks of migrant workers by pretending to be one herself. She recognises that she has the luxury of being able to escape back into her world of research, writing and campaigns, but how many journalists would work undercover at a brothel or food processing plant?

This book would be a great piece of fiction about struggle and survival. It reminds me of ‘Man Push Cart’, except these sad stories have really happened. I am struck by the irony of being a migrant worker in Shanghai who is enjoying a very privileged life among very welcoming people while Jenny has always had a great time during her two visits to the UK. Would she have been welcomed so warmly if she had arrived under different circumstances out of the back of a snakehead’s people smuggler?

It is also worth noting that the biggest bullies in this book are often other migrant workers who have set up unlicensed employment agencies or act as landlords in houses that sleep six to a room. The British Government is blamed for victimising undocumented workers as ‘illegals’ while the economy benefits from cheap labour. In a sense we are all to blame for enjoying our comfortable lives while others work very hard to make our easy lifestyles possible.

Chinese Whispers is available from Amazon.com.