Fiction: Group 3
made a deal to work in a plastics factory. The salary was meagre (just enough for her meals), working hours
were long and work was mundane, but Wen didn’t mind the exploitation - she was just happy to get a job.
She returned to the house late at night with a satisfying contract and a full stomach.
Wen worked hard. Every day she would wake up before dawn and cycle to the far edges of the city, passing
through packed highways and twisted little paths among the giant factories that reached to the sky.
Hundreds of workers would cramp inside the 100 sq. ft. quarters, waiting for the day’s torture to come. A
dirty, ragged uniform would be loaned to her, and then for 10 hours in the hot and stuffy room at the
factory (most days the boss was too selfish to switch on the air conditioner), she would sit on a squeaky
stool, gluing lifeless Barbie heads on its body. Every day repeat, repeat and repeat, until her hands turned
sore with the needlework and her neck tired from staring at countless heads on the line. She left work with
excruciating pain and lethargy, but with a sense of contentment. Every day her dream came closer.
For half a year had she stayed at the woman’s home, under her care and blessing. She would return to the
house with the woman fast asleep, her bed clean and made. The woman left early in the mornings, leaving
food and money on the table. Wen couldn’t understand why this unfamiliar woman was willing to help her.
Even though they were living under the same roof, the mysterious woman felt far and away from her.
Wen could not hold her curiosity anymore. She decided to follow the woman.
She stayed up the whole night, waiting for the woman to wake up. At 2:00 in the morning (Wen was
doubtful even if that was morning), the woman sprung up from her bed and out of the house. Slowly Wen
crept after her in the shadows. The woman went on her bicycle, and rode straight on north. Wen followed
her, trying to keep the creaking of the long-ungreased wheels as silent as possible. The woman left the dirty
neighbourhood and rode into a small opening in the tall bamboo shoots around the isolated community,
taking complicated turns to smaller and smaller paths, until the path was so narrow she had to get off the
bicycle and push it along the bumpy and twisted road. Wen followed her tracks from afar.
And among the weed- saddened grassland was a worn down textile factory. Whiffs of white smoke faded
into the morning skies, escaping the rusty, cranky chimneys. The steel outer wall was stripped from its
coating, exposing the brown tinge of rust inside. The windows were reduced to a milky white layer of thin
scarred glass. Although the paths were narrow, the factory was packed with people - people ran and walked
up and down the stairs, their voices loud, and each person trying to shout over the last.
Wen didn’t expect her benefactor to be a humble factory worker like herself. She walked up to her.
“What are you doing in this slum?”
The woman jerked back in surprise. “What are you doing here following me?” She tried to sound
indignant, but nonetheless there was a feeling of embarrassment in her speech.
“Why are you helping me?” The question blurted from Wen.
The woman’s posture relaxed. She wiped away her stern glare.
“Two years ago, I left everything I loved and travelled 1500 miles from Mongolia to this city to live the
Chinese dream. I arrived with no family, no friends, no one to care for myself. A pickpocket stole the only
valuables I brought with me. For twenty days I roamed the streets, homeless, hopeless, desperate. That had
been the hardest time of my life.
I walked far away from the city, wanting to give upon myself. That’s when I found this clothing factory, and
that’s where I’ve worked day and night, less for the meagre salary but more for the fulfilment of my far-
fetched dream.
When you knocked on the door that night, your face dirty but determined, I saw myself in you. I
understood the despair. I saw your miserable life: roads of wooden stairs laden with tacks and splinters and
torn-up boards; journeys of no certainty of plan, just pure determination; hands of bruises and splinters and
