Work that makes people jump off buildings

"Made in China" has long been a sort of derisive punchline. But actually, most high-tech gadgets are now made in China, and most of them are assembled in factories run by Taiwanese-owned Foxconn. Heard of the iPhone? Chances are your smartphone or laptop came from a Foxconn factory. In recent years the young workers at these factories (some as young as 18) have been committing on-the-job suicide at an alarming rate -- seven so far this year. The factory in Shenzhen has been nicknamed Fushikang "running to your death" on account of the employees who've taken a flying leap from the top floor. Why? By Chinese standards jobs in these factories pay relatively well, and building the gadgets that Western consumers covet is seen as a source of pride. There are probably cultural reasons. Job-related suicide has been a regular feature of postwar Japanese society. The Japanese even have a name for it -- karoshi.

This expose by undercover Chinese reporter Liu Zhiyi points to something else. It paints a profoundly sad portrait of a generation of workers in spiritual crisis. Here is part of it (Note: some of the translation is awkward).

If you ask the workers what their dream is, you'll often get the same answer: start a business, make money, get rich, and then you can do whatever you want. In the warehouse, they humorously name their hydraulic trolleys "BMWs." They, of course, would rather own actual BMWs, or at least "BMW" kind of wealth.

They often dream, but also repeatedly tearing apart their dreams, like a miserable painter who keeps tearing up his or her drafts, "if we keep working like this, we might as well quit dreaming for the rest of our lives." They manufacture the world's top electronic products, yet gathering their own fortune at the slowest possible pace. The office's guest network account has a password that ends with "888" -- like many businessmen, they love this number, and they worship its phonetic equivalence ["rich"]. Little did they know that it's their own hands protecting the country's "8," yet their overtime hours, lottery tickets, and even horse racing bets, struggle to find the "8" that belongs to themselves.

. . . .

This factory's workers rule the world's finest gadgets' assembly lines with their two hands, and continuously break trading records that buzz the world, holding the Chinese export champion title for seven years non-stop. But it seems like while they're controlling the machines, the machines also have them dominated: the parts gradually come together as they move up the assembly line; at the same time, the workers' pure and only youth also disappear into the rhythmic machineries.

After using the toilet at 4am, I stuck my ear on the workshop corridor wall, and listened to the machines rumbling steadily from all four directions -- this is the factory's heartbeat. The employees work, walk and eat at this beat, so no wonder I was walking so fast, eating so quickly without anyone hurrying me, even though it didn't feel good. You're like a component that's entered the assembly line, just following the rhythm, belonging to that heartbeat at 4am, no way to escape.

Shenzhen, a once small border town that leaped to one of Pearl River Delta's busiest cities, hides a group of anxious young people behind row upon row of tall buildings. In 2009, Times magazine nominated "The Chinese Worker" as "Person of the Year," praising its "determined vision shone on the future of mankind,"* but this so-called "determination" is needed to resist being mechanized and eroded by capitalism. Can they really avoid such "determination?" When computers, phones, cars, and all other commercial products become the products of capitalism, sweat, youth, and even life, all these values are exhausted by capitalism as well.

As Communist China transforms itself into a capitalist society it will inevitably bring greater freedom and a higher standard of living to more people. This is to be desired. But without a healthy view of work as that which reflects the good work (and Sabbath rest) of our Creator God, capitalism becomes just another dehumanizing soul-killing ideology. I think this is the ultimate reason why young Chinese are choosing death over another shift on the assembly line. What they need most is for the gospel to penetrate the corporate and work culture of China. They need hope.