Factory Girls By Leslie Chang

Through the ethnography, Factory Girls, Leslie Chang explained what it meant to be a person by documenting a migrant workers, emotions, hardships, achievements, traditions, family life, social life and contribution to society. Many people within Dongguan attempt to be perfect but, that concept is nonexistent because in order to be a person it is critical to have faults because it develops one’s character. Being a migrant meant that a person had to work hard, educate themselves, focus on the future or to have ambition. Many factory workers torn down their self esteem because they felt as if their status was not high enough. An example of this is when Chumming wrote a series of questions in her diary, she asked herself, “Why are you so useless?”(50). This common question that migrant workers ask themselves daily because they are consumed with their own ambitions causing them to ignore that in order to be a person that they are obligated to have faults. Chumming was guided by her emotion of fear that she was “useless” which builds upon her character as being a person who is ambitious about being successful. To summarize, it is common for people to believe that they are
People are faced with various decisions each day, some people either chose right or wrong. Chang’s recurring theme was corruption within the city of Dongguan. Many migrant woman feel to the need to lie who they are dating and what they are doing. An example of this is when Min decided not to tell Min about her boyfriend Ah Jie and her intention to marry him. Min had no issues with lying to her parents because, “Concealing things from parents was now second nature to her”(364). Min chose to lie to the people that raised her which shows her lack of morals which, shows that there is a trust issue because she “concealed” the truth from her parents. This lack of morals proves the theory that in order to be a person they must have