In tatters, rags, and out at the elbows, their weather-worn faces lit up the morning. On every advancing day that I legged it to class, they saluted me with an elated “ní hao.”[1] From dawn to dusk, they drudged away unwearyingly.Chiseling through bedrock like human jackhammers and living bulldozers, they hauled away the debris by hand. Their heaves raised the highways; their hoes built the high rises. Not unlike hard labor convicts that bend might and main, they wasted their strength, almost in vain. What was their crime? They were peasants from the countryside out to make a dime.
Such brigades were common sights in every angle of the country. Outwardly, they were marked. Cloaked under a layer of dust, they wore faded army-blue or -green shirt jacks and patched baggy fatigues, which were hoisted about the waist with a three-cord rope. Teachers and officials snubbed them, branding them with the label: Chuánjūn—‘the Sichuan Army’.
As the name connotes, this army of workers came from Sichuan, the province just north of Guizhou that boasts a population of about 87 million. By the time I had arrived to China, the rural inhabitants of Sichuan had not yet heeded the 1-child policy and was bursting at the seams, forcing many men—both young and old—to roam the country in search of labor.
[1] ‘How are you?’ pronounced Knee? How. Photos Copyright Men's Fashion by Francesco.
