A Day In The Life Of A Young Recent Graduate Worker In Xi’an

Passengers on a bus in China.
From Mop:

I am a member of the working tribe [working class], and although this group of photographs were not taken on the same day, my life every day is the same. These photos represent a day in my life.

I am a member of the ant tribe [young recent graduate working class], and although everyday I “crawl” from a “village in the city” [or "city village", like a "ghetto" or "slum"] to the office, but from the same process everyday, I have used my mobile phone to capture fleeting differences.

So this is “a day” in my life.

Every morning, this is where I wait for the bus, and these are those also waiting for the bus. After awhile, everyone begins recognizing each others’ faces.

Young Chinese workers waiting at a bus stop.

In order to avoid being late, I wake up very early to take the bus, and often see the buses absolutely empty.

Empty seats on a Chinese bus.

After getting off the bus, I have to walk two stops before getting to the office. Every time I pass by this high-rise facing the street, I get nervous. This four-story old-fashioned office building’s outer walls are all cracked, but you cannot see them here in this photograph.

The outside of an old building in China.

After getting to the office, everyday I cannot help but watch this slow-moving clock, like a snail before my eyes slowly moving its needle.

A clock hangs on the wall of an office.

Noon, time to eat. Every person hastily eats and hastily leaves.

Chinese walking on the street at lunch time.

I envy these older people who can sit in a restaurant without people and slowly drink soup.

Older Chinese drinking soup in a restaurant in China.

Settle accounts, pay the bill, calculate money, either way they are all the same.

A young girl calculating the restaurant bill.

On the way back after eating, a deliveryman was hit by a taxi, the person flipping a few times in the air. He was lying on the ground, but when driver said, “Why didn’t you watch for cars?” he sprang up, however limping from his injured leg.

Scene of a motor accident, a man limps.

This is a sunny day, everyone’s faces are smiling.

Two Chinese men walking on the sidewalk laughing on a sunny day.

Working in the afternoon can get very sleepy, so the smoking area is a good place.

A sign for a smoking area in a Chinese office.

On the way home after work, I will always encounter people different from the norm.

A homeless man on the sidewalk.

The bus stop I wait at everyday will always have many street vendors, pushing their little carts, some selling flowers, some selling fruits. Observing them can sometimes alleviate the anxiety of waiting for the bus.

Street vendors at a bus stop in China.

Sometimes, you will encounter traffic, and the driver will not hesitate to reverse and find another way in order to make time. As everyone was looking back, I pressed the shutter.

Passengers on a bus in China.

Ever since certain incidents happened at various kindergartens throughout the country, kindergartens have implemented a set time when the gates are open. Since then, every day I pass by the front of the kindergarten there is a long orderly line.

Parents lining up to pick up their children at a kindergarten in China.

Sometimes when looking at all the yellow and red hair, I wonder if I am a foreigner or if they are foreigners.

Female passengers on a Chinese bus.

Seeing him, I think back to my youth that I was happy enough to simply be borrow a virtual pet to play with.

A young Chinese schoolboy plays with his PSP on his bus ride home.

Though small, there is everything. This is the village within the city.

A "city village" in China.

Surrounding the television watching the World Cup. When the Korean team scored a goal, everyone chose to be silent.

Chinese men watching the World Cup on a small television.

A typical restaurant in the city village.

A typical restaurant in a Chinese "city village".

Entering the city village, the setting sun shines upon the bodies of every member of the ant tribe.

The sun sets over a Chinese "city village".

Comments from Mop:

杀很大:

This is basically a wasted day! The people living this kind of life in China today does not exceed 10%, those living in the slums are all migrant workers, whores, old losers, or swindling hooligans. When these slums are completely transformed/rehabilitated then these kinds of people would no longer be there, and then we would have harmonious cities.

meter4bonwe:

The 5th floor [commenter above] is doomed.

只为爱上你。:

Brother  sees “情侣用品” [lover's products, adult products].

光着脚打手枪:

Mop these days lacks original [content], I saw this post on KDNet one month ago.

饿狼再难看佛:

It is the fifth floor [first translated comment here] who is a true Mopper. No matter what the post topic is, always hold an opposing opinion!

阿高高:

Sigh, even though this kind of life is one that we are all living, how come it is so dreary from a reader’s perspective?

不再吱声:

The fifth floor’s asshole has probably tightened up, and is looking for someone to loosen it for him.

掌握泪光:

That building with the cracks should be on the southeast corner of the Hanguang Road circle/roundabout.
Louzhu rides the 706 bus line.
The place where the accident happened is Sheng Ti Xi Men.
The ** beautiful girl is at “Hanguang Road stop”, opposite Tan Chang Hotel.
Evaluation of the above.

lzzhong9910:

[We share] The same life, the same environment, the same experience.

太假了:

Actually, everyone has overlooked the main point [of this post]. The traffic accident is the real highlight.
This brother is too unlucky, louzhu‘s life everyday is the same, and sees the same thing everyday.
So isn’t this brother getting hit every day for the louzhu to see?

Is life the same every day? chinaSMACK personals.

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42 Comments

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  1. I don’t see any foreigners in that picture…

  2. Looks like a day in the life of an idiot.

    This girls life is so desperately shit and now she has gone and made my day desperately shit too by ‘enlightening’ me with her choice to be ordinary.

    Here is my suggestion: Keep dreaming of someone to save you from your retardedness or go and jump in front of a taxi and enjoy a few air flippings.

    • Thing is, I didn’t really think that her life was so bad, at least from the images shown. Yeah, work sucks, and she may not be being paid as much as she deserves, but there’s no images of terrible living conditions or lack of food.

      As far as being and “idiot” and the “choice to be ordinary”, grow up a little bit. People don’t always get the job they want. Sometimes you need to go through a little bit of a rough existence. And some people have no way out of a rough existence.

    • rotfl. I’m not going to read past here. Nothing below could top this summation….

  3. I pity you all. Day in day out, day day the same. I was given a choice like that once. But I chose a less paying job with more free time. Now, after 20 years, my pay is “enough” but I work 200 days a year and my working time is 7am to 1 noon. So, my fellow tribe, be creative.

    • Haha. I worked really hard for 5 years in China, For about 2 years 7 days a week.
      Now i’ve got a great job. I get paid 20 grand rmb for working from mon to fri(9 AM to 11 AM)
      Plus apart from my regular 10 hrs a week job i also do some other stuff here and there, making good money and lots of rest and free time. But i worked my ass off for 5 years in china.

    • You must be a governmental official, I guess. Yeah, your work is so creative.

  4. I work in Lynn, MA in the US, and this daily routine does not seem too different from mine.

    If it’s supposed to be a portrayal of China’s societal problems, it’s clear that the problems are not too unique.

    In other words, China seems to be doing pretty well if this is an average working person’s life.

  5. Dear Fauna i’m a lil bit upset. Everytime i leave a comment, i get the message awaiting moderation and then they get deleted. I dont know why coz i try to refrain from profanity/racism/BS.

    Please respond.

    [Note from Fauna: You use multiple names.]

    • You’re just making yourself look like an idiot dude. Here’s some really obvious advice: If trolling is that important to you, just get one or two other email addresses, duh

      Let me guess, pretty soon some complete stranger (who’s totally not you) with a really vague name is gonna reply to this, defending you and calling me a piece of trash with a small dick and a whore mother… how far off am I?

      • Listen up dude, I never called your mama a whore or said that you got a tiny penis.
        I wonder why your head’s coming up with stuff like this, maybe you got infer. comp.
        BTW stop accusing me for something which i didnt do, I can accuse you for pimping for your mama, doesnt make a difference. goes the same way!

      • if this is going to happen in every thread now, why don’t we just have registration?

  6. Oil consommation/production limit
    2008 : 98% -> price grow to 150$/barril then crisis
    2009 : 90% -> because recession
    2010 : 94%
    2011-2012 : “financial” crisis

    1.5 billion chinese people + 1.2 indian people want a western/japanese modern life, sorry no place for everybody, keep dreaming.

    • I’m withchu on this one…
      and remember there is still a whole world with kind of the same aspirations so, lets all dream and fight to build our realities.

  7. Interesting little story and quite ‘typical’ of so many Chinese these days. China is becoming more Japanese everyday.

  8. She’s not that bad looking. If that’s her on the bus I’d give her a 6/10. She’s a little chubby but not like American fat. What she’s doing wrong is her shirt. Her shirt exaggerates her stomach and makes her look like she’s got a gut.

  9. song of the article

    Working Class Hero,

    artist, take your pic….

    五毛党

  10. As anyone who has ever gone to see the Terracotta Warriors will testify, Xian is a depressing third tier shithole apart from the historical sites.

  11. Would gladly trade my 14 hour day for this idiot’s so-called tough life. At least they get to go home when the sun is still in the sky!

  12. I think to use these pictures for my students of Chinese language. They will look at the pics and describe their everyday activities ))

  13. Are we talking about Xi’an or Xian? I’ve never heard of Xian. Please hire a foreigner to look over all translations, and learn how to write pinyin, especially place names.

    Anyway, I’m not sure what the point is. She has a crappy job in a crappy city. She also probably claims to be tired from work.

    • “Are we talking about Xi’an or Xian? I’ve never heard of Xian. Please hire a foreigner to look over all translations, and learn how to write pinyin, especially place names.”

      Things wrong with that:

      1) It’s a typo, not a fundamental problem.
      2) Foreigner != native English speaker

      Also, I do believe there are foreigners working with chinaSMACK. Though being a small operation, most of the work seems to be freelance.

  14. Maybe the next topic is: what is it like to watch paint dry.

  15. This girl has a university education and an office job in a major city. . So she is white collar. She is living the Chinese dream. Fulfilled her parents plans for her.

    Of course it is normal to feel a bit empty and aimless. . since all her life was devoted to fulfilling other peoples expectations of her.

  16. A good post. Peek in the life of white-collar worker. I don’t think she waste her life. This is just a snippet of her life. We cannot tell too much about her personal life (although overall tone is somewhat boring), but it is valuable insight in every day China.

  17. I don’t really like the use of the terminology “ghetto” or “slum” in this context. Both of those terms are extremely loaded. In my opinion, those terms are far more negative than what these “village in the cities” really deserve.

    For those who don’t know, village in the cities are really relics of China’s urban planning. Villages own their land collectively, and “villagers” have authority on deciding what to do with that land. Well, as cities expanded in size… they eventually surrounded these villages. So these villagers often developed inexpensive real estate projects without the sort of sophisticated urban planning that would happen at the city/district-level. These buildings are sometimes poorly constructed, poorly laid out.. but always cheap.

    But that’s not always the case. Some “villages in the city” are indistinguishable from the cities around them. And other areas of the city proper is just as beaten up and messy as these villages.

  18. Chunghwa (away frm home)

    >”Surrounding the television watching the World Cup. When the Korean team scored a goal, everyone chose to be silent.”

    I laughed so hard at that one. Really subtle, but we all know what the author was implying.

  19. this is just my life as well – but im not as depressed about it… anyway…

  20. 看了一遍自己作品的英文版。有点意思。
    看了评论,忍不住说几句。
    我确实生活在西安,但我是纯爷们,我不是政府单位,而是网络媒体的摄影频道编辑。看着别人猜自己,挺逗的。
    那只是我以前的操蛋生活,因为毕业生的低工资和高房价,我只能选择与社会底层住在一起,对于我来说,没什么可耻辱的。中国的大部分毕业生都住在这里,这里吃住都便宜,为什么不呢?

    P.S.这只是为了交差而临时组成的一篇帖子。
    感谢Fauna,辛苦的将我并不通顺的中文翻译成了英文。

  21. and all of Africa fits into that category.

  22. Yeah, as a city Xi’an isn’t all that much different from any other Chinese city. Outside of the walled-in area it’s pretty much identical to everywhere else. Even the famous beautiful places like Hangzhou look exactly like Xi’an in the majority of the city.

  23. HA HA HA HA HA – JHC – that one made me roll around – Foxcon! HA HA – I heard they are hiring…. :)

  24. As I understand it, Lenovo just took over a couple product lines. That’s not a complete buyout.

  25. Hmm, I guess the deal is a little bigger than I thought. I would not, however, concluce that the US is a “bankrupt state”. Is it necessary that we invest in IBM? After all, we throw capital at plenty of other countries, and get plenty of money thrown back at us. That’s just globalization. What’s more, it can benefit our economy, such as when Toyota and Honda build factories in the US.

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