Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

Factory Girls follows two young women as they leave their rural villages to work in the assembly lines of Dongguan, a manufacturing hub in China's Pearl River Delta. Through their eyes, Leslie T. Chang documents the largest internal migration in human history, capturing a world where nearly everyone is under thirty and where a lost mobile phone can mean losing a boyfriend or a friend. Chang moves between the massive, self-contained sneaker factories and the gritty social landscape of the city, including karaoke bars that serve as fronts for prostitution and makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion to master the language. The narrative also returns to the farming villages for Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness that drive young people to leave home in the first place.

Description adapted from Open Library ↗.