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April 2008
HONG KONG: South Asian women at work
CHINA: Migrant children at school
CHINA: Work, Song and Poem
HONG KONG: Five families on social welfare
CHINA: Safe and warm after the snowstorm
We hear their tired voices through
poetry and song, a tradition long used
in mainland China in the call for justice
and humanity.
We hear displacement in the voices
of South Asian women in Hong Kong,
who find it hard to get a job, despite
many efforts , and despite being
well-educated.
We hear the sombre reality of an
eleven-year-old girl, the daughter of
a single-parent migrant worker in
China’s northwest, a top student yet
at risk of not getting the nine years of
education entitled to her.
Yet, we hear optimism, too. A
museum to validate and celebrate
In Hong Kong, April marks the end
of one fiscal year and the beginning
of another, and this being the banking
and financial centre that it is, money is
omnipresent, seen or unseen.
Day after day, week after week,
year after year, we work and work.
Money comes and goes.
This edition of O.N.E features the
voices of some of the most overworked
and underpaid workers : migrant
workers.
migrant workers will soon open in
Beijing, three months before the
Olympics. A new website on the main-
land is in the making, and migrant
children are now going to government
school. And, last but not least, in our
cover story, South Asian women in Hong
Kong are making handicrafts to earn
some income, to release tension, and to
make a home away from home.
O.N.E asks, does there need to
be such a gap between ‘work’ and
‘home’?
Madeleine Marie Slavick
Editor, Oxfam News E-magazine
Oxfam Hong Kong
emagazine@oxfam.org.hk
This is a place the women call their
own. Other than their homes, perhaps
this is where they spend the most time.
Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,
twenty South Asian women, mostly
from Pakistan, come and work, and
talk, mostly in Urdu. It is personal and
it is professional: they share their sighs
from the day or the week, and they
discuss their handicrafts: should we add
more beads, more colour, should we use
traditional motifs, why not try selling
them at this shop?
On the day I met them, they were
discussing what to make for a big fair
held by the Kwai Tsing District Council.
In the past, the women only made
their handicrafts for their families;
now, the items are leading to cash, a
better way of living, and a sense of
empowerment in a community that
is not their own. One woman named
Fanyal, who has been a member of the
women’s group for about a year and
a half, says, “I like coming here a lot. I
can make some money by doing design
work, which I like very much, and I can
also talk about my ups and downs.”
Fanyal’s designs are integrated in the
embroidered and beaded accessories,
TALKINGANDWORKINGBy Tung Tsz-kwan
in Hong Kong
The women’s handicrafts project brings income, a sense of family and community, mutual support.
Fanyal (top, left) and three other handicrafts members-workers. Photos: Tsang Wing-kai
Text and photos by Tung Tsz-kwan
Xuelan (above) and other migrant children at school.
in China
jewellery, bags and clothes, items which
are then sold at Love Multi-culture, a
shop in Kwai Fong.
Fanyal, 25, moved to Hong Kong
with her husband four years ago. Des-
pite the need to look after their two
daughters, aged 3 and one and a half,
she has been looking for a full-time job
in order to support her family, as well as
her in-laws in Pakistan. Her efforts have
been in vain. “I have applied for jobs at
schools, offices and community centres,
but my inability to speak Cantonese
has always made me a less preferred
candidate in the eyes of employers,
even though I speak fluent English.”
Fanyal can go on and on about her
frustrating search for a job. “I am no
different in terms of being a resident
of Hong Kong. At least they should
give me a chance! I completed post-
secondary education, and I could have
been a medical practitioner in Pakistan
with just two more years of studies.
How come I end up not getting a job in
Hong Kong?” Before leaving Pakistan,
Fanyal tried to prepare herself for
the challenges ahead, but the reality
in Hong Kong has been harsher than
expected. “Sometimes I get so sad I
burst into tears, but then I share my
misfortunes with the members here
[and I feel better].”
Fanyal also translates for Urdu-
speaking patients at hospitals three
to five days a month. Her income is
very low from these two jobs, but she
tries to be positive. “It’s better than
nothing!” she laughs. “It’s giving my
family a bit of a lift in our living
standards.” Nevertheless, she still wants
a full-time job as soon as possible.
Fanyal is far from being alone. Many
of her friends have similar experiences,
and she always encourages them to
join the women’s group. She hopes that
through mutual support, everyone will
be happier and will be able to earn more
money to buy things for their kids.
The 20-member handicrafts group
Fanyal belongs to is at the HKSKH Lady
MacLehose Centre, which has been
running various projects with ethnic
minority groups since 2000. According
to a survey conducted by the Centre in
2004, the unemployment rate for Pakis-
tanis and Nepalese in Hong Kong is 24
per cent, which is 19 per cent higher than
the overall rate; they estimate that as
many as 90 per cent of the women are
out of work. The handicrafts project is
part of a larger programme aimed to
empower ethnic minority people, give
them a chance to be more connected
with the community, and to alert them
of their rights as Hong Kong residents.
Together, the women find ways around
the language barriers that can limit
access to public medical services, and
ways to assist students who often do not
receive adequate support at school.
Karen Yim, a project officer with
the HK SKH Lady MacLehose Centre,
says there is a certain demand for the
handicrafts. In the first year, the women
were able to make an average of HK$550
a month (about US$70), and they want
to increase this to at least HK$700, if
not $1,000 a month (about US$90 to
$130). “To our group members, mostly
recipients of the Comprehensive Social
Security Assistance Scheme [the main
welfare programme in Hong Kong],
this new source of income can make a
difference to their living standards.”
Yim assists the women in communi-
cations and other minor areas. It is the
women themselves who negotiate
with buyers, make production sche-
dules, determine the types of handi-
crafts to be produced, work out all cost-
related matters, and find a sustainable
path for their business. Besides selling
their goods at existing retail outlets,
the women are also thinking of work-
ing together with other associations
and government departments. They
want bigger orders, such as the one
they are working on now, for the
District Council.
Tung Tsz-kwan is the editor of Mokung magazine, where this article first appeared in Chinese, in a slightly different version. Oxfam Hong Kong has been supporting the HK SKH Lady MacLehose Centre since 2006 on various employment- and advocacy-related projects to ensure the rights of ethnic minority people in Hong Kong. To support this project, please contact Karen Yim (852) 2423 5062 / cwloveu@shkmaclehose.org.hk.
NOT RICH, NOT POOR
have never been to school, and are from
an ethnic minority and may not speak
much if any Chinese, some children
need time to adjust and some need
some tutoring. They all treasure the
opportunity to learn, and most have
done reasonably well.
“Ninety per cent of the parents are
illiterate, so they can not teach their
children very well… Some parents do not
know how to supervise their children or
check homework… Every month, we run
three activities with parents, teaching
things like child psychology, study
habits, and issues surrounding gender,
health, and labour law.” Teachers
regularly visit their students’ homes to
understand the situation better and to
offer suggestions and support.
With only 120 s tudent s , the
education point knows its limits. They
see themselves as serving an example
to society and to the government. They
believe that migrant children will only
be able to get an education when the
government assumes its responsibility.
Xie Xing Lin says, “We have to continue
with our advocacy work. When the
media has more coverage, there will
be more pressure on the government
to face the problem and take up the
challenge.”
Xuelan puts it this way, “I envy
people who can study at a government
school.” She told Oxfam that she does
not dare say this to her mother, that she
does not talk to her about wanting to
continue studying beyond the education
point. She knows her mother works so
hard, and the money just is not there.
After years of advocacy, media
outreach, and hard work, the Lanzhou
Muslim Culture and Education Associa-
tion can claim a victory: in September
2007, the Lanzhou City Government
accepted all of the students from the
education point into the public school
system, waiving all the miscellaneous
fees and textbook charges, which can
be about 800 to 1,000 Yuan a year, per
child. From now on, all migrant children
can enjoy the right they have deserved
all along.
This article is adapted from an article written by Tung Tsz-kwan for an upcoming Oxfam book on basic education and health care. She interviewed Ma Xuelan in June 2007, three months before the Lanzhou City government policy changed. Translated by Stephen Tsui.
aspirations are high. She wants the
education point to be a starting point
for her education and her career, “I want
to be a doctor when I grow up, then I
could help treat all the patients in this
country.”
Xuelan’s neighbourhood of Qi Li He
is home to many ethnic minority people
from different areas. Most people
sell mutton, drive vehicles, and clean
buildings for a living. The family monthly
income is typically under 500 Yuan
(about USD70), hardly enough to cover
a good standard of living, for health
care, and education for the children.
Even if children have been able to enroll
at government schools, the drop-out
rate has been high, as parents’ income
is typically too low and too irregular to
sustain the expense.
It was the Lanzhou Muslim Culture
and Education Association that did the
groundwork for the ‘school’ that Xuelan
has been attending. The community
group applied for project funding from
Oxfam Hong Kong, and in 2003, the
education point opened.
All along, the media has been
supportive of the cause for the city’s
migrant children education, as has the
general public. After all, China vows to
give all children the right to an education
with its Nine Years Free Education
Policy. Yet, for migrant children who
are quasi-legal residents and therefore
do not always have access to all that a
city can offer, this right has not been
secure: while studying at the ‘education
point’ is free, it only offers two years of
schooling, and is not classified the same
as a government-endorsed school.
To urge the government to imple-
ment its own policy, the Lanzhou
Muslim Culture and Education Associa-
tion began to do more publicity and
in 2005, ran an open recruitment for
students. This is when Xuelan’s family
heard about the school and got their
chance of an education.
The ‘school’ headmaster, Xie Xing
Lin, says, “When the classes started,
many parents came and asked many
questions. With only 120 places, we had
to set some admission criteria: we have
given priority to children from poor
families, from single-parent families,
orphans, and girls. Since many students
Lanzhou, the provincial capital of
Gansu in China’s northwest, a city with
many factories.
Qi Li He, the district where many of
the city’s 18,000 migrant workers live.
Jiaoxue Dian, a two-year ‘education
point’ for 120 students, about 70 boys
and 50 girls, aged about 5 to 15, mostly
from impoverished, illiterate, ethnic
minority, and migrant worker families.
Ma Xuelan, 11, is in Primary Two, the
final year of the school.
It is June 2007.
Tense and reserved, Xuelan rarely
smiles in conversation, even when
talking about something happy or about
things that she likes. Is this because of
her difficult childhood, with a share of
pain and bitterness?
Xuelan has three older sisters, one
younger one, a deceased father, and
an overworked mother. The family is
Dongxiang, the most impoverished
ethnic minority group in all of China.
Nine years ago, Xuelan’s father
died, so her mother has brought up the
five daughters on her own. The family
decided to move to Lanzhou a few years
ago, hoping to make a better life, yet
this is how Xuelan’s mother describes a
typical city day: “working from seven in
the morning till seven at night, I am so
tired when I get back home that I just
want to sleep.” She earns just enough to
pay for the day’s most basic expenses.
When the family learned about
the Jiaoxue Dian, the education point,
Xuelan and two of her sisters were
accepted. “When I had the opportunity
to study, I was terribly happy and
excited,” Xuelan told Oxfam, but still
not smiling. “An education will help
me find a job when I grow up, and I will
be able to treat my mother well, rent
an apartment for her, and let her enjoy
some good food.”
Xuelan says she enjoys learning
more than anything else, that every day
when she returns home, she studies as
much as she can, and reads a lot.
“I have to study hard to change my
fate, but I don’t want to be too rich,”
she explains. “Rich people are always
watched by others. Not rich, not poor,
that would be OK with me.” Xuelan is
always one of the top three students
in the school examinations, and her
in Hong Kong
Hong Kong: ALL’s RIGHT?
Director King Wai Cheung speaks about his newest film,
All’s Right with the World, which follows five families in Hong
Kong during a Lunar New Year holiday. Each has different
reasons for needing to rely on social welfare, and their stories
lead in intriguingly different directions, yet they all five
families seem almost accustomed and adapted to poverty.
Beijing in 2008 is more than the
Olympics. More than the shiny infra-
structure surrounding that international
event.
Several new projects are underway
with the thousands of migrant workers
in the capital city, and in cities all
around the country: a cultural website is
being developed with the workers, the
newspaper Worker Poet is publishing
their writing, and a museum is opening
soon to display their art and cultures.
Oxfam Hong Kong is supporting each of
these projects.
It is the Internet that is probably
the liveliest place in Chinese society,
with millions of sites and blogs, and
billions of emailed and msn messages
every day. The world of the web is also a
wide place for the country’s 200 million
migrant workers, and a new site, Worker
Cultural Web (www.zgdgwh.com),
featuring workers’ music, photography
and literature, is under construction. The
organisers see the site as a platform for
the workers to articulate their culture,
as migrant workers are often lost and
forgotten in the contemporary chic of
city life. The website will also be a space
for workers to assert their rights, and
practical information on labour law and
regulations will be posted.
The newspaper, Worker Poet, is the
product of 13 migrant workers who
talked on-line about the idea, swapped
their own poems with each other, and
started publishing in 2001. Seven years
and many editions later, the newspaper
now has over 80 active contributors who
live and work in over 30 provinces/regions
across the country. Here, poem is history,
personal, political, total.
The new Migrant Workers’ Culture
and Arts Museum, in the outskirts of
Beijing, is the brainchild of The New Labor
Art Troupe, an arts collective that has
been working alongside workers for many
years. In 2002, they started giving free
performances at construction
sites, city squares, office
buildings that migrants clean
or guard, inexpensive hotels
and restaurants – anywhere
where workers typically
gather. Their concerts have entertained
thousands of people after a long day of
underpaid and undervalued work.
The lyrics soothe and do not soothe.
They speak of injustice in the workplace
and in society, so performing at places
such as construction sites, for instance,
always requires a lot of negotiation with
the management beforehand. Maybe
this is the magic of music: it crosses the
usual divides. While talks and meetings
about labour rights may not always be
welcomed in workplaces around China
and around the world, the Troupe
manage to gain the trust, understanding
and permission to communicate the exact
same messages through song.
Their music, song and drama have
been inspirational, for themselves (they
have maintained the troupe for six
years, and counting), for the workers
(performances are uplifting, and often
standing room only) and for the general
public (the troupe has been featured on
state television, their CDs are popular,
and they have won many awards for their
creativity and perseverance).
The Troupe’s museum has already
run several exhibitions and workshops
although formally the doors
only open to the public in May
2008. They also help run a free
library, a second-hand shop, a
school for migrant children,
activities on labour law and
workers rights, and computer lessons so
that workers are comfortable with today’s
on-line world.
The 200 million rural people who now
work in urban China, mostly live and
work in the capital city of Beijing, and in
the cities near two powerful rivers: the
Yangtze (which serves as a natural divide
between north and south China) and the
Pearl (which runs through many of the
economic zones in the south).
These workers are mostly women,
mostly under the age of thirty. They
are people on assembly lines, people
at construction sites, babysitters and
housecleaners, and a range of other
workers. It can be said they form the
backbone of China’s workforce.
Oxfam wants to amplify the voices
of these people. We want to recognise
their worth more publicly. We want to
alert more people to the problems faced
by the workers, because, more likely
than not, they suffer discrimination and
exploitation every day by their employers.
In the construction industry, for instance,
where many of the men migrant workers
are employed, it is common practice that
workers are only paid after the project is
completed, after the building is standing.
But by then, the employer may have left,
and not a cent is paid.
the poor have apparently improved.
Yet, this is just on the surface.
Perhaps it is true, because on the
outside, the clothes of poor people are
no longer in tatters, yet on the inside
– the lives lived in these gorgeous public
housing estates, the real scenes behind
this ‘All's Right with the World’ attitude
– are overshadowed by a constant men-
tal state of anxiety and scarcity. Not only
poverty, but also a series of mishaps seem
to pursue them. Is it just coincidence, or
social inequality, or personal weakness?
Why are their fates so miserable? And
why are they unable to escape from their
unfortunate destinies?
A Chinese sage said, ‘Heaven and
Earth are ruthless.’
One of the families in King’s documentary is featured in CSSA-nization, a book published by CSSA Alliance and Oxfam Hong Kong about ten people who receive social welfare (called CSSA for short). All’s Right is screening at film festivals around the world, from Hong Kong to Rotterdam, and the Oxfam-supported book (in Chinese) is available from www.oxfam.org.hk. King’s next film will discuss CSSA policy, and second edition of CSSA-nization is underway.
CHINA: Work, Song and Poem
As a child, when I looked out of my
apartment, I saw a squatter village. Every
day on my way to school, I passed it and
witnessed the horrible living conditions:
tiny spaces with no toilet and as hot as a
steamer during summer.
The poverty at that time was easily
seen.
Times change. The squatter village
has been demolished, the same space
has become a residential complex with
By Madeleine Marie Slavick
LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD?Time
Stealthily harnesses me
I was in the youthful procession
Now I am middle aged
Looking back
Six years of working life passed
Life of a machine
Programmed and controlled from the
Beginning
By the boss
Going to work, coming home
Eat, sleep,
Trees and lamps along the road
Is the only landscape
Little by little
Old dreams
Shedding
Along with fatigue and helplessness
Now buried deep in the soul
The chord I dare not strike
What’s left is an empty corpse
Turing with the factory machine
BROTHER BILLWhen I know you, you have been working for thirteen hours.
All the guys call you Brother Bill,
The warmest way to name you.
When you are drunk, you can say you are homesick,
How you miss your wife and children,
How you work harder and harder for them every day,
How you wake early in the morning,
Work late into the night,
How tired you are, but harder and harder,
Every day.
You hate the guys who do nothing, but gain the most.
They wear beautiful clothes, but look down on you.
‘Who supports who,’ you ask.
They can never understand you.
They can never understand you.
Day by day, year by year, the days have passed.
What you keep: a pair of empty hands.
You always say there may be a change tomorrow,
But the day after, you wake, work, harder, endless.
When I know you, you have been working for thirteen hours.
Lyrics: Sun Heng of New Labor Art Troupe Translation adapted by Madeleine Marie Slavick
Listlessness
Has long become as usual
All of a sudden
Amidst cling-clangs of the machines
In the spectral stuffy heat
In the flood of drowning sweat
Amidst endless curses
from the manager
A voice seems to ring in my ears:
This lonely boat will drift until when?
Where is your bay?
I lift my head
And find only
An endless sky
Blinding fog
Dangerous waves
So I have to
Dip my head low
To bury that voice
Time and time again
With the hammer’s hammering noise
Poem: Lai Julin, a migrant worker Translation: Yuen Che-hung, a poet based in Hong Kong
an air-conditioned department store,
and the buildings are much taller than
the one I have been living in.
The poor have gone; no poverty is
‘seen’ in Hong Kong any more.
Sure enough, the overall living
standards in Hong Kong have drastically
improved over the decades. Public
housing estates 30-storeys high and
advanced facilities have replaced squat-
ter villages. The residential conditions of
April 2008
OXFAM HONG KONG WEBSITEwww.oxfam.org.hk
OXFAM BOOKSOxfam Hong Kong has created
more than 30 books, some in Hong
Kong, some in Taiwan, some on the
Mainland, some in Chinese, some in
English, some bilingual, and some
mostly with images, which cross all
languages. Through publishing the
voices of poor people around the
world, we want to change the way
people think about poverty. We
want justice.
To order books: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/list?lang=iso-8859-1
OXFAM in the NEWS HONG KONG / SINGAPORE: “36 actions to change
the world”, a publication created by members of the
Oxfam Club in Hong Kong to urge people to do a little
something every day to make a better, fairer world, will
be published for 36 consecutive weeks in Singapore by
Sin Sin Weekly. The magazine (in Chinese) reaches
primary school students: http://www.sinchew-i.com/intro/
index.phtml?file=sinaransinchew.html.
For more about Oxfam Club,
http://cyberschool.oxfam.org.hk/eng/minisites/oxfamclub/eng/index.htm
MOKUNGOxfam Hong Kong publishes this quarterly
magazine in Traditional Chinese. Mokung,
which means both “no poverty” and “infinity”,
highlights a different aspect of development
in each issue. The Editor is Tung Tsz-kwan. The
March 2008 edition looks at the poverty news
poll in Hong Kong.
To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore
/?lang=big5
Mokung is online at www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/category?cid=1017&lang=big5
ONEO.N.E – Oxfam News E-magazine – is uploaded
monthly at www.oxfam.org.hk/one.
To receive a copy in your inbox, please
subscribe – it is free.
To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/one/subscribe.html
CO
VER
: Tsa
ng W
ing-
kai
17th Floor, 28 Marble Road, Northpoint, Hong KongO.N.E is also on-line:
www.oxfam.org.hk/one//
Hong Kong
What can people do about
Climate Change and Poverty?
Please tell us at:
http://forum.oxfam.org.hk/?c_lang=eng
China’s worst winter in 50 years:
blizzards, ice, sub-zero temperatures…
killing people, livestock, trees, crops…
collapsing homes, schools, offices…
and stopping transportation, electricity,
and more…
The crisis could have been far worse
for people in Kangle in the northwest
province of Gansu. The Civil Affairs
Department there worked quickly, alone
and with collaboration with Oxfam
Hong Kong. They facilitated meetings
with residents who voiced that it was
good-quality quilts and overcoats they
most needed, so these items were
sourced to their specifications. Oxfam
joined in, prioritising single-parent
families, elderly people, as well as
households with a disabled person, and
since there had been a recent census in
Kangle, there was good access to the
information needed.
When Lourdes Lasap of Oxfam
Hong Kong’s Humanitarian and Dis-
aster Risk Management Team visited
Kangle in February, she sensed a good
rapport between the residents and the
Department staff. “Everyone felt so
familiar with each other,” she said, “and
the relief projects were implemented
quickly and with a lot of community
input. The residents also played a role
in quality control, and made certain
that the coats and quilts met their
standards.” Oxfam staff members
based in Gansu are now discussing reha-
bilitation projects with the residents
and government departments, and are
advocating that disaster preparedness
be integrated into the design for all
community development projects. A
thorough assessment of just how much
was lost is also underway.
Bottom three photos by Sha Lei / Oxfam Hong Kong
Sometimes a crisis brings opportunity. The living conditions of people are made shockingly
clear, and community response can be comprehensive. Li Yinggui, 70, has been taking care of
6 people in her extended family for years, including 3 people with a disability. They all
received quilts and coats for the immediate snowstorm, and will also soon have a new home,
health insurance and social welfare. Photo: Ma Miaofeng
Most people in China’s northwest live off their livestock, which provides food, drink, clothing, and cash. Official figures report that at least 129 people have died in the snow- storm across China, but it is not known how many animals perished – probably in the tens of thousands. In Gansu, Oxfam will be working to replenish farmers’ livestock.
Getting to remote places can be a test, as it was for Oxfam in this part of Qinghai.
Surrounded by warm quilts, an older woman from Gansu smiles with Lourdes Lasap of Oxfam Hong Kong.
SAFE AND WARM IN THE SNOW