In the evening of November 11, with a bulging bag on her back, the woman pushed her way into the hotel, hung up the phone, and froze her hands red. This is the eighth day that Zheng Xiujuan has been in Jilin City, and she still hasn’t found a job, so she’s staying in this five-buck-a-night hostel without telling her family.
I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make it. A small woman with short, curly brown hair, wearing a denim vest and a black fleece jacket, shuffled out of the hut in front of the entrance with her shoes shuffling.
This is the owner of the hotel Sun Erniang, 68 years old this year, she every day through the hut glass window to look at every woman into the store, the most said one sentence is, “have money to pay, no money down. In the eyes of the residents, this small woman’s spirited personality, like the “Water Margin” in Sun Erniang.
In the past 24 years, almost all of the hostel residents are single women in the countryside who are migrating to the cities to work, but also laid-off women workers. They are the oldest over 70 years old, the youngest just over 30 years old.
In the past, it took two yuan to spend a night here, and most of those who came were women who had escaped from domestic violence and “took this place as a place of refuge. Sun Erniang can’t remember how many people stayed here for one night at most, but she only remembers that the bunk beds were full of people.
In the past 10 years, the room rate has risen from two yuan to three or five yuan, and fewer people have come to live here – “one day to work, one day to live”.
From “Shelter” to Landing Place
On the evening of November 11, four women were sitting or lying in the women’s dormitory.
Liu Guilan is on the bottom bunk of the high/low bed, leaning against the wall in the shadows, with a radio playing opera tunes beside her.
Liu Guilan has two strands of black bangs on her forehead and a small ring of white roots between her black hair that is tied back.
She has been living in the dormitory off and on for more than twenty years. This was Liu Guilan’s first place of residence in the city. After her partner died of cancer, her family took on a lot of debt for the treatment, her two sons went out to learn bricklaying and carpentry, and her daughter also worked abroad. With more than ten acres of rice fields, the rice cost 20 cents a pound, but after seeds and fertilizer, there was not much money left.
The first thing I noticed was that there were a few women in the village who came back from working in the city and told me that there was work to be done and that I could make money. The first thing you need to do is to take a look at the newest products that are available.
After the death of her husband, she went to work in a nearby restaurant, where she worked the morning shift from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Every day, she worked the morning shift from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., while 65-year-old He Fang brushed her phone screen to chat.
Zheng Xiujuan, 65, uses her cell phone to video chat with her granddaughter. She came to live in the dormitory for eight days and never got a job. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in a situation where I’ve had to worry about a job before, but I’ve been able to get a job for half a day.
This is the first time I’ve ever been to the hospital. Her hands and fingers were cut with long, thin slits that hurt when they got wet, and her nails left black marks that couldn’t be rubbed off. She rested for a few days before she came to look for work. Just in time for the end of the farming season, more people came to the countryside to earn money, “it’s hard to find work.
Her hair was gray, her face looked dull yellow, and there were a few deep creases on her forehead. Among several women, she had come to the dormitory alone after years of domestic violence.
The owner, Sun Erniang, had the impression that when she first opened the store, almost all of the residents were single women like this. Most of them were escaped after domestic violence, and some of them had children with them, “as a place of refuge.
Sun Erniang remembers that almost all of the women who came to the dormitory were silent and looked tired, some were so tired that they lay down and went to sleep, and some secretly wept. “No one asked about the sadness, and everyone understood that people were suffering in those days. “
“Although it’s called a dormitory, it’s actually a hostel. Women in their fifties and sixties, when there’s no work in the fields, come out to make a few years’ money and stay here for a few days when they’re looking for work. “
New residents came and went, and it was hard for Sun Erniang to remember what each of them looked like. The people who live here now are all poor women from the countryside, and their lives are much better than they were a decade or two ago. They are earning money, the women’s family status is higher, they can’t be subjected to domestic violence, and no one gossips about divorced women in the countryside, so they can soon start a new life. “
From doing everything to “picking the job”.
On November 13, the light of day, Zheng Xiujuan got up and touched the bag of toothbrush toothpaste, she unscrewed the faucet, leaned down and opened her mouth to catch the water, the water is small and cold, fast “brush”. “Brush your teeth and rinse your mouth a few times, take the water in both hands and pat it on your face, rub it in a few times. Then felt the comb from the bag, stood in front of the large mirror hanging on the wall in the foyer, soaked a little water on the forehead of the hair, carefully smoothed back the hair, tightly tied up.
She folded her bedding in two, put on her coat and scarf just after 6:15. She carried her bulging bag on her back and sidled out of the house. The first thing you need to do is to get your own personalized copy of the booklet. “
Yesterday, a domestic helper introduced her to a babysitting job, and she’s going to go to that house to see what’s going on. It’s a good idea to have a good idea of what you’re looking for.
It’s a great way to get a good deal on your own. It’s a good idea to use a little bit of the same old “I don’t want to get into a lot of trouble,” she says.
Every day, Zheng Xiujuan and two dozen other women workers huddle in the agency’s house, from seven in the morning to six in the afternoon, with an average of only five or six employers hiring. These days, the price is very low. 1,500 yuan a month for domestic work, has become a “pretty job” that can’t be taken. The rest are mostly for the bedridden elderly who can’t take care of themselves, and the work is heavy, but the wages are a few hundred dollars less than in previous years.
In the evening, when it was dark and the dormitory lights were on, Zheng Xiujuan came in with a bulging bag on her back, her scarf wrapped haphazardly around her face, her hair disheveled, her face red from the cold, her brow furrowed, and her voice hoarse, facing the doorway of the cabin glass window. “
For Zheng Xiuyuan, no job is a job she didn’t get. It’s hard to get a job that is well paid and easy to do.
This is a great way to get the most out of a woman’s life.
The first thing you need to do is to take a look at the newest version of the book, which has been published in the journal.
In the fall, when she went to pick a fungus at Huang Songdian, more than a hundred kilometers away, she sat for four or five hours, soaking her shoes, changing her socks and going back to pick again.
As they got older, the first choice for these women when looking for work was nannies and restaurant attendants.
There were no domestic helpers back then, and at first, the age requirements for these jobs were not very strict. It is very common for a woman in her sixties to take care of people in their seventies and eighties, especially when it comes to babysitting.
It’s not easy to find a job for a woman in her sixties, and the waiting time for a job is getting longer. “It’s even harder to find a job once you’re 65, and it’s not possible to do 24-hour care for the elderly. “
Assisting a nurse in the care of a dialysis patient in a hospital costs 100 yuan a day and includes a meal. To many people, this seems like “good work”. But for several people in the women’s dormitory, “hospital work is not easy,” said Zheng Xiuyuan. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to afford it,” she said. “.
When Liu Guilan’s hair turned a little gray after she turned sixty, her employer said at first glance that she was too old to be hired. In order to look young, she followed the example of the people in her dormitory and bought a box of hair dye creams that cost two yuan each. Every few months, when new growth of white hair appeared in her black hair, she dyed it again.
Fifteen years ago, the only labor market in Jilin was under the women’s dormitory building. At three or four o’clock in the morning, people looking for work began to gather, the hutong was divided into two rows, respectively, standing full of men and women carrying bags, “the employer picked, follow the line”.
In 2006, the labor market moved away and was replaced by more than a dozen home economics agencies in the hutong, with employers contacting them.
People like Liu Guilan, who has experienced the labor market, don’t like the current hiring model. “We were only 300 yuan a month back then, the agency fee had to charge 50 yuan, and it cost 2 yuan to come and stay in the dormitory for one night, so how could there be any money left. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that, but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that,” she said.
It’s a good idea to have a good idea of what you’re looking for. It’s not just a matter of time, it’s also a matter of time before you get to the point where you can’t do anything. The hair coloring technique doesn’t work anymore.
Now after looking for work at an intermediary and asking for an ID card, the hair dyeing trick doesn’t work anymore. Liu Guilan can only occasionally get jobs like distributing leaflets and cleaning ginseng, but this year the cleaning of ginseng has also been replaced by machines.
Working for the Children
It took Guilan Liu more than five years to pay off her family’s debts. She will not spend a dime more than the cost of lodging and food. The money she saved was sent home to her children, and in the winter her hands and face were chapped and frostbitten. The cheap bagged cream was squeezed out one at a time and applied to the face the size of a soybean.
Later, when her older and younger sons got married, Liu Guilan gave all the money she had saved to her children. It’s also a good idea to have a good idea of what you’re looking for.
The first thing that you need to do is to get a good deal of money for your granddaughter to grow up and go to school, and she continued to work, thinking that she could subsidize her son a little bit. “
Liu Guilan leases six acres of land in her hometown to her neighbors, and now receives more than a thousand yuan a year, which, together with the thousand yuan from the New Rural Cooperative Program, is barely enough to pay for her room and board in the dormitory.
When she doesn’t have work, she goes to the street to pick up scrap. She collects neatly folded cardboard boxes and stores them under her bunk bed in a snakeskin bag that she drags to the scrapyard.
She stuffed plastic bags in the cracks of the bunk beds, which is a good tool for winter. When it’s more than ten degrees below zero, she wraps plastic bags around her legs and puts on cotton pants, so that the rain and snow can’t seep in when she goes out, and the wind doesn’t make her cold.
The food outside is expensive, and she usually cooks her own food, using an alcohol pot to cook it. Potatoes, sweet potatoes and a bundle of onions are piled up under the bed. The first thing you need to do is to take a look at a few of the products that are available in the marketplace, and you’ll see that they’re not cheap.
It’s a great way to get the most out of your time and money.
It’s a good idea to keep this information to yourself. It’s a good idea to use a little bit of the same old, clean, polished tile flooring. If my family knew that I was living in such a cheap place, I’d have to hurry home. “
But to live in a more expensive hotel, she did not want to. Compared to some of the cheap hostels she has stayed in before, “It’s cleaner here and looks a bit moth-eaten, but in fact one night’s sleep is enough to know how often to wash it, and the blanket still smells of soap. “
When she came back to look for work, she mostly lived here. It’s not just a matter of time, it’s also a matter of time.
It’s not just a matter of time, it’s also a matter of time before you get a chance to see the world’s most beautiful woman.
I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do this.
“Grandchildren are in school, son and daughter-in-law are tired of working, you said I can not work? Six years ago, Zheng Xiujuan’s eldest son got married, she and her partner gave them a down payment of 200,000 yuan to buy a building in their hometown, which cost almost 200,000 yuan to decorate.
These women have almost the same idea: work when they are young, raise their children to adulthood, save money to buy a house for them, get married, subsidize the family, and then “retire” when they can’t work anymore. “, “When I’m too old to work, I live with my son. “
How about some company?
In the dormitory, they don’t shy away from talking about their relationship with men.
About ten years ago, Sun Erniang rented a suite next door and opened a men’s dormitory, where male residents often come to visit.
A few days ago, a couple of men and women who had gotten together in the dormitory came to chatter about their relationship, the woman 59 and the man 37. He Fang teased her, “The dorm sent her a little boyfriend.
Li Qinfang, who was still living in the dormitory, also found a partner. Sun Erniang set up a “couple’s room” of less than two square meters on the balcony of the women’s dormitory, with a one-and-a-half-meter bed occupying all the space. Li Qinfang and her husband have been living here for more than a month, and the daily boarding fee is ten yuan for two people.
This kind of companionship is not uncommon in men’s and women’s dormitories. He Fang sounded envious, mentioning that many of the single women in the previous dorm had found their partners and moved out. Some of them got married, heard that life was going well, and slowly disconnected from the dorm.
In everyone’s eyes, 50-year-old He Fang is still looking for a partner. The first thing you need to do is to get the right person.
On November 18, it rained overnight in Jilin, and snow began to fall.
In the afternoon of the next day, the snow was ankle-deep. Liu Dali from the men’s dormitory next door was carrying two bottles of Niu Lanshan liquor and three cans of snowflake beer, Liu Guilan cut up two large onions, and Sun Erniang sent a plate of sweet potatoes in a small quantity of water. A few of them sat together in a small quantity of water and drank.
Li Qinfang teased them, “Brother Liu has never rested for two days, he is steady in work and has a good temper. “Liu Guilan also coaxed, “He Fang is only 50 years old, it is suitable to find someone. ”
He Fang and Liu vigorously shook their heads when they heard the jokes, and He Fang raised her cup, “Brother Liu is my big brother. I’ll wait for my son to get married now and I’ll think about my own business. “
“What’s the use of looking. She looked at the bed board in silence for a long time, twisted another handful of tobacco from a black plastic bag, rolled it up in white cigarette paper, and leaned against the ladder at the head of the bed to smoke paper cigarettes. “Ashtray”.
Zhang Qing had also found a man, is working when he met, at first he was willing to work, in the construction site to do small jobs, a long time, in the face of things will be short-tempered, will also hit people. The first thing you need to do is to find a way to make sure you’re not getting beaten up. “
At first, Sun Erniang was not optimistic about this union, worried that the man would cheat the woman out of her money. But now look at Li Qinfang two stable relationship, she is also changing her views, think two people “live very good, have a partner”.
“If you have the money, pay it, if you don’t have the money, take it down.”
In this women’s dormitory, Sun Erniang is the absolute backbone of the family.
More than 20 years ago, Sun Erniang was divorced and laid off from her job at a brewery. She set up a cigarette stand at the intersection and a few years later bought a two-bedroom apartment in the building, which she intended to leave to her 18-year-old son as a wedding home. As she watched more and more women looking for work, she thought of opening a women’s dormitory when there were few hostels nearby and she had to walk five kilometers for accommodation.
The hostel opened in 1996, initially charging one yuan for a night’s stay, and Sun Erniang yelled at the crossroads, “Accommodation, accommodation. The first night only one person came, the second night six, and the third night ten, and it quickly filled up. Later the accommodation fee rose to two yuan a night, and in a few years rose a dollar, until now 5 a night.
Opened more than 20 years of hostels, she still “stingy” badly.
In the dormitory, what services are clearly marked price. It costs 1 yuan to boil a pot of hot water, 2 yuan to use a washing machine, 10 yuan a month for a locker with a lock, and 20 yuan for an old cotton jacket for workers who don’t have a jacket to wear. Sometimes she would cook a pot of rice when a resident brought back some good food, “giving two yuan for the food.
When there are many people, sleeping in the bunk beds inevitably causes some friction, and noise is the norm in the dormitory. Especially in the summer, there are no fans in the dormitory, so it’s hot and stuffy when people are next to each other. Some people put things in random places, some people gossip, and no one wants to give in when they argue. At this time, it was necessary for Sun Erniang to administer justice. “What is there to quarrel about? Why don’t you go find work yourself if you have this time? “When Sun Erniang’s voice is bright, the dormitory will be instantly quiet.
Every day before lights out, Sun Erniang went to the high and low beds, held out her hand, and charged one by one. A 5 yuan or 10 yuan banknote dropped on the bed, Sun Erniang picked up and smoothed.
Many people still like this spicy woman, Sun Erniang often led a group of women to do odd jobs in the dormitory, “dormitory full day is forty dollars, can not do more work. The company has a long history of working in the industry, and the company has a long history of working in the industry,” she said.
No matter how old they were, everyone in the dormitory followed suit. The employer saw all the old ladies at the place and was not too pleased. Sun Erniang quickly said, are only “more than fifty, farm work show old. “said a lot of good things, before the employer agreed.
When doing work, she put the weakest woman next to her, “are not easy, can take a hand on each other. “Late at night back to the women sitting on the bed, Sun Erniang one by one to everyone to pay wages. “How hard the work, the thought of night can expense, no not cheerful. “
“If you have money, pay it, if you don’t, forget it. “When she met someone who hadn’t worked in a few days and couldn’t pay the rent, she recited, and then shouted, “Lights out at 8:30, go to bed early, and get up early to work tomorrow. “
Someone got a call from the agent, the employer had a temporary problem and had to go to work early. She mumbled and asked if she could get a refund. Sun Erniang was quick, “Half of your money back, you go and see if you can’t, then come back and give it to me. “
“She is softer than anyone else, and has endless worries about us. “Liu Guilan remembered, the next day saw a job opening, Sun Erniang ran in, “this job you do not go? Don’t settle for less money, you can’t earn a penny for not working. “
When she was past her prime, Sun Erniang’s herniated discs and joint pains no longer allowed her to take odd jobs, so she stopped. She began to believe in Buddhism, and the sound of Buddhist sutras was heard throughout the day in her hut.
In a chat with reporters 10 years ago, Sun Erniang mentioned her wish to remodel the dormitory, replacing the old beds and mattresses, painting the walls a light apple green, laying smooth tiles on the floor, and raising a few flowers – like a real “women’s dormitory”.
These wishes were hard to realize. Ten more years passed, and the floors and walls of the old house became more and more pitch-black. She counted the many difficulties: “There was no money for renovation, and she was afraid that some people would have nowhere to go if the business closed down. “
She tried to make some changes. When people in the neighborhood moved, they would send their futons to the dormitory, and she would buy some red and pink cloth and sew them on the covers.
She has put flowers on the windowsill and introduced the name of each pot to Liu Guilan, who couldn’t remember, but when she saw that one of the pots had five flowers, she introduced it to the other sisters, which was called “Five Golden Flowers.
“Open the dormitory until the day when you are too old to move.”
Although they lived in the center of the city, the fact is that these women never really had anything to do with the city. Other than where they went to work, they almost always stayed near their dormitories and didn’t actively visit other parts of the city to wander around, “What’s there to see there. “
The memories they have of this city are all related to their work. In Jilin Street, they cleaned the streets to create a civilized city in Jilin; in the new lobby of Jilin Railway Station, they cleaned a few years ago; when the biggest shopping mall opened nearby, they took over the “customer service” job. “It’s the best job in the world to make money.
In 2006, Chi Xiaoguang, a reporter from Jilin TV, came to the women’s dormitory and filmed for five years to make a documentary called “Women’s Dormitory”.
After that, a number of media came to cover the story.
Sun Erniang has not seen the documentary video and reports about the dormitory, she put on her glasses, with a small flashlight to shine the article on her phone, read out word by word, “more than 20 women, like sardines, rags like sheets …… haha.”.
“It was a really hard time for everyone too. ” she sighs.
Still, the reports got the dormitory noticed. Some kind-hearted people sent them old clothes, while others insisted on sending some common medicine and steamed bread.
At the beginning of the year, Liu Guilan went home to her eldest son’s house for the New Year, and the news of the epidemic was on TV, so she called Sun Erniang every now and then to ask if she could come over to the dormitory.
This is the longest time Liu Guilan and her children have been together in more than twenty years. She said her children are filial and the kang is warmed daily, but she always worries about causing them trouble. In May, some sisters called her, the epidemic was under control, she insisted on going back to the dormitory.
Liu Guilan said that most of the people they left behind chose to live here because of Sun Erniang, unknowingly treating this dormitory as a home. “There is a human touch. There is no place like home here, but it gives us a warm feeling, and our hearts are warm. “
The years of toil left an irreversible mark on them. Almost all of them carry a lot of pain into their old age.
Liu Guilan has high blood pressure and sometimes feels uncomfortable with her heart, so she doesn’t dare go to the hospital for a checkup. Zhang Qing walks with stiff legs, and when she bends her legs, she can feel the pain.
Not long ago, an elderly sister in the dormitory was picked up by her son, and her twenty years of work was put into a plastic bag, which was all she had. A few days ago, this sister returned to the dormitory for two nights, the bed is not long enough, she has to bend her legs, sleep on the diagonal, and wake up in the morning to Liu Guilan exclaimed, “or come here to sleep more solid. “
Zhang Qing no longer has a “home” to return to. After the divorce, she had little contact with her children, and occasionally when her daughter called, she said, “It’s good to be here. She also stays in the dormitory during Chinese New Year holidays. She is a vegetarian, so she makes vegetarian dumplings, which are half as big as her fist, and has to be eaten with her hands.
“It’s lively and comfortable here,” said Zhang Qing, who made the dumplings. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that. The preparation, “work one day, live one day, no work, pull down”.
Sun Erniang said that she wanted to keep the dormitory until the day she was “too old to move”.
Sun Erniang had several notebooks by her pillow, densely packed with names and phone numbers, with one casing off and the paper yellowing. She flipped through them from time to time, and when she saw the names, she mumbled, “She’s married now and doing well. “She’s very old, she’s going to live to be ninety. “
She rarely dials these phones. She says, “Just know that they’re having a good day, there’s no need to get in touch and bother people. “
She frowned when a media call came in wanting an interview, and held her phone up to her mouth, “There’s nothing to film, things are better now, it’s not so hard. “
(All characters except Sun Erniang are pseudonyms)
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