Greetings from Chinarrative!
A migrant worker’s farewell letter to a public library in the manufacturing city of Dongguan touched millions of Chinese people recently. Fifty-four-year-old Wu Guichun, who spent the past 12 years living there, had to return to his hometown when factories were shut down due to the Covid-19. Before he left, he wrote a thank you note to the library which was then posted by a librarian and circulated widely on Chinese social media.
In this issue, we meet Wu and the people at Dongguan Library. The story originally appeared on the Chinese nonfiction platform Renwu(提示：点击该链接可以看到中文原稿).
Known as the factory of the world with more than 150,000 industrial enterprises, Dongguan in the southern Guangdong province hosts millions of migrant workers. Its diversified industrial ecology offered Wu and his generation of older migrant workers a place to survive. The library was also a refuge, providing Wu companionship and comfort in the sprawling factory city. As Wu wrote in his emotional parting letter:
Looking back on my life in Dongguan, the library is the best place I’ve been … I will never forget you for the rest of my life, Dongguan Library. I hope you will rise and prosper, benefit the city, and spread your wisdom to all migrant workers who come here.
By Xiaoqing An
It was a parrot in Dream of the Red Chamber who could recite poems that ignited Wu Guichun’s will to read when he first started coming to the library with a trusty Xinhua dictionary more than 10 years earlier:
Lin Daiyu was about to shed tears once more; but just then her parrot, which had been perched aloft under the veranda leaves, seeing that his mistress had returned, flew down with a sudden squawk that made her jump.
The parrot heaved a long sigh, uncannily like the ones that Daiyu was wont to utter, and recited, in its parrot voice:
Let others laugh flower-burial to see: Another year who will be burying me?
Wu found it incredible that one single parrot could be so powerful. If Lin Daiyu, one of the main protagonists in Dream of the Red Chamber, had a bird that could recite poems, why couldn’t he?
One July evening in 2020 at Dongguan Everbright Property Management Company’s staff dormitory, Wu Guichun let me in on the story. In 10 years, Wu Guichun had read Dream of the Red Chamber four times. The boost to his self-esteem and confidence from reading led him to memorize poems and more importantly, find a kind of balance between life on the assembly line and in the library that sustained him for 17 years in Dongguan, his “double life” in the “world’s factory.”
A month earlier, on June 24, Wu Guichun had set off to return his library card and get back his 100-yuan deposit (around $14) before returning to his hometown in Hubei province for good. On the invitation of the Dongguan librarian Wang Yanjun, he wrote a message in the visitor’s book:
I have been in Dongguan for 17 years, of which 12 have been spent happily in this library reading books. Books have feelings and do not hurt people. This year the epidemic has killed off plenty of industries and sent migrant workers packing. I have chosen to return to my hometown. All these years, the library has been my favorite place. Although I am reluctant to give up my card, life has made the decision for me. I will never forget you for the rest of my life, Dongguan Library. I hope you will rise and prosper, benefit the city, and spread your wisdom to all migrant workers who come here.
The story of Wu Guichun and the library has become one of the sweetest stories to come out of this turbulent year in Dongguan.
Back to the books: among all the books Wu has read, he likes Dream of the Red Chamber and San Yan Er Pai the most. He is a firm Daiyu fan.
“Lin Daiyu is something of a genius. They are all lonely and arrogant, talented people, from Su Dongpo to Li Bai,” Wu asks, referring to famous figures from Chinese literature.
After a drink or two, the man had loosened up somewhat and now stared in the direction of the dormitory door. Unbidden, he began reciting “Funeral Flower,” “Good Song” and “Good Song Notes” from Dream of the Red Chamber.
On finishing he declared:
This is the essence of Dream of the Red Chamber. If you haven’t engraved them on your heart, you’ve read the book for nothing.
Wu’s magnifying glass and dictionary. Courtesy: Xiaoqing An / Renwu
In 2003, Wu Guichun’s father, a native of Xiaogan, Hubei, passed away. Wu Guichun’s wife had left him and he and his son faced crippling poverty. Coupled with the death of his mother earlier that year, Wu Guichun felt he had no choice but to seek work in Dongguan far to the south, and he decided to go alone.
He was 37 years old and a primary school graduate. This classed him among the least competitive workers in the industrial city. On the assembly line, people need to be strong. Older laborers like Wu Guichun could only find work in small workshops where conditions were harsher.
His first job was in an illegal factory. A month after starting and his pockets were still empty. People told him he could find better work in a factory area near to Houjie in Nancheng district. This patch of Dongguan was known as one of the “shoe capitals” of the world and was dominated by private workshops owned by people from Wenzhou (a town in eastern China known for its entrepreneurs).
The tiny ramshackle workshops were packed as densely as matchboxes. Without proper fireproofing and environmental protection, most had no need for placards out the front. Inside they were full of glue, leather and plastic soles.
Wu did odd jobs to begin with. He swept floors, moved stacks of soles around, and carted leather here and there. Finally, he learned a craft he could practice until perfect — shoe polishing.
To polish shoes, you needed two things: a glue machine and a hot air gun. The head of the glue dispenser rotates at high speed to remove excess glue and stains on the shoe, and the hot air gun burns off loose threads.
Before polishing, there are more than a dozen other processes involved in making shoes, so Wu Guichun waited around a lot. His workstation was tucked in beside towering iron shelves on which the new shoes were placed — far from the other workers.
Wu Guichun sat alone in the shadows polishing the leather shoes. When the shoes reached him, everyone else got off work. Yang Li, the shoe factory owner said Wu Guichun would spend his time waiting for work on a stool in the well-lit corridor, reading.
The shoe factory where Wu used to work. Courtesy: Xiaoqing An / Renwu
Many workers in the area are couples who come to Dongguan together. Wu Guichun came alone. In order to pay for his son’s school tuition and living expenses in middle school, university, and during postgraduate studies, he led a simple life.
He paid 180 yuan a month for rent, and for the money had the cheapest house he could find, in one of the infamous urban villages of Guangdong. It didn’t come with a toilet. The room had space for just an iron frame bed and a gas stove. A fan above the bed, a Xinhua dictionary, a magnifying glass, two books on healthy diet and prevention of hyperlipidemia, and a jar of goji berry and orange peel wine under the bed were all he had. Wu’s only freedom was that he could pack up and leave anytime he wanted.
Wu and his son had a commonly distant father-son relationship. Along with being alone for many years, the two spent very little time together. Each month Wu kept 1,000 yuan and asked the factory owner to send the rest directly to his son’s bank account. The child was boarding at school and spent the rest of the time at his grandmother’s house.
He had brothers and sisters in his Hubei hometown. After the death of his parents, their home was demolished and rebuilt. His brother and sister had older children, and when he went home, he had no place to call his own. The bed, quilt, and tableware were all theirs. They would call him for meals and he would eat.
Many times, he wanted to have someone to talk to and could find no one. He and his wife never divorced, but they have not seen each other for many years. The father of the shoe factory owner sometimes chatted with him. The old man heard him say angrily:
Living to 60 years old is plenty. No need to live longer.
The work was not technical and gave him no sense of achievement. In the off-season, there is nothing to do to make the time to pass. The workers played card games, went shopping, and had fun. He has no remaining money to play cards or buy things and was always short of money. At first, he bought a few second-hand books from the street stall to pass the time. This was then that he read Dream of the Red Chamber for the first time.
The south of China is very hot in summer, and the library is located in the administrative center of the city, surrounded by squares, parks, exhibition halls and municipal government buildings.
There are millions of migrant workers in Dongguan. “They haven’t studied much. If you give them Chinese and Western cultural comparisons or lectures on international relations, they won’t be interested,” librarian Wang Yanjun said — “Leisure” should take first place: the freedom to “come in and take a look and eventually read something.”
The very first time he went to the library, Wu Guichun was nervous. Coming up to the front gate, he had a sense of trepidation. When he had traveled south for work, “security guards meant trouble,” he said.
That day, the security man did not check his ID. No questions asked, Wu took a book from the shelf in the periodicals reading room on the third floor. He read until late and no one paid him any attention. Only then did he know for certain that this library would not charge him.
When he went for the second time, he took a pen and a notebook, wrote down the new words he didn’t know, and started looking them up in the dictionary. The shoe factory had no work in the off-season, so off he went to the library after breakfast and did not emerge until it was dark. He had no need to stop for lunch: “I wasn’t hungry. It may be that the air conditioner inside is so well adjusted. You don't move too much when reading books and don’t burn energy.”
Courtesy: VCG Photo
Wang Yanjun, the staff member on duty on June 24 who invited Wu Guichun to leave a message, recalled that once, a boy was waiting at the reception desk for a new card and had asked Wu: “So many history books, all with different views. Have you ever thought about which one is true and which one is false?”
Wang remembers his reply. Wu Guichun told the kid there was no absolute truth in history:
The history one writes is all about perspective. So it depends on how much you have read and which viewpoint you are willing to take.
The avid reader liked the third-floor reading room best. On the north side, there is a red sofa by the corner with a strong frame. He said: “It’s very comfortable to snooze there for a second when you’re tired from reading.” He was sorry to lose the spot to someone else when he got to the library late. Looking out from the window behind the sofa, there were mangoes, banyan trees, magnolias and camphor trees, all common in the subtropical parts of China.
The staff in the reading room all knew him. Sometimes he would bring in biscuits or bread, and while these were prohibited, no one stopped him. His focus and dedication meant he could skirt the rules. One said: “if I disturb him, it’s me who feels uncomfortable.”
The diversified and flexible industrial ecology of Dongguan enabled Wu Guichun and his generation of older migrant workers to survive in warm southern crevices. The library was in the center of the city, like a lighthouse on the sea, offering solitary folk long-term companionship and comfort in the deserted city.
The workers went home for New Year. The off-season at the shoe factory lasts as long as 40 days, but Wu rarely took the trip. “If you go home you have to spend money,” he said.
Dongguan has a “no fireworks” policy, so the center of the city was calm throughout January 2020, and Wu Guichun went to the library every day to read as usual.
Wu lives in loneliness: “I’m used to it. It’s natural for me to pass my time by reading. And this is why I go to the library over New Year.” He reckoned that without the 40-day holiday every winter, he would never have read so many books over the past 10 years.
Before the Spring Festival holiday, Wu Guichun told the shoe factory owner Yang Li that now his son had a stable job, Wu wouldn’t need to polish shoes anymore. In the new year, he would find an easy job. He wouldn’t ask for more than 2,000 yuan a month.
The 2020 epidemic disrupted everyone’s plans. Wu Guichun, who was originally going to return to Dongguan in February to find an easy job, had to stay at his brother's house until June. Yang Li’s shoe factory could have resumed work in April at the latest, but he was still waiting for foreign orders in mid-June.
The pandemic affected every producer in the factory of the world. Compared with Spring 2019 when 70 or 80 small factories were stuffed into the industrial park where Yang Li had his workshop, this year only 20 remained.
Wu had no way to board a train to Dongguan without a letter of permission from his work unit, and as he had quit, there was no letter to be had. So, he only returned to Dongguan on June 23, two days before the Dragon Boat Festival.
The rent was due to expire on June 26. Before coming, he had called ahead to find that the shoe factory was without orders and jobs were scarce. He understood that his hope of finding another job in Dongguan was very slim.
Which takes us back to the day he handed in his library card.
Wu Guichun conceived his note for a few minutes, feeling calm. As expected, he couldn’t find a job. In the 133-character message, he wrote:
All these years, the library has been my favorite place. Although I am reluctant to give up my card, life has made the decision for me. I will never forget you for the rest of my life, Dongguan Library.
After Wu Guichun left this message, another librarian was just coming back from lunch. Hui Ting read the message and thought: “It’s just like a love letter.”
She took a photo of the message and sent it to the internal group of librarians. In the following 24 hours, through reposting on WeChat, social platforms, and the media, “A reader’s message to Dongguan Library” had become a 2020 trending topic.
Wu tends the gardens at Jinghu Garden Community. Courtesy: VCG Photo
On the morning of June 25, Wu Guichun made one last loop of the Nancheng neighborhood on his bike looking for recruitment notices. Not one job notice was to be found. He was going to have to return to his hometown.
At lunch, he pondered his fate. But then, shortly afterwards, it took a turn. He started receiving calls from Dongguan TV and Dongguan Times: “One reporter spoke to me on the phone. He said: ‘you are very popular on the internet.’ I said: “How would I know? Even if I have a mobile phone, I just use it to make calls. I don't know anything else.”
In the evening, he received a call from the local human resources and social affairs department who asked him what kind of work he preferred. Now he was famous, they planned to find him a suitable job and keep him in Dongguan. He replied that he wanted to stay in a shoe factory.
A day later, the department found him a large shoe factory in the neighborhood. But Wu didn't want to move a block farther from the library. Then Guangdong Dongguan Everbright Property Management Company approached him. The company wanted Wu to tend the gardens at Jinghu Garden Community, less than two kilometers from his favorite place. He agreed. On June 26, Wu left the rented room where he had lived for 17 years and moved into the Everbright staff dormitory.
Wu Guichun’s life had been touched by fate in a good way. And almost every person involved mentioned the same pivotal moment. If it had not been Wang Yanjun — the librarian who had keenly observed and empathized with this ordinary reader day in day out — on duty when Wu said goodbye to the library, he wouldn’t have left behind that note as he said farewell.
And this story would not have happened.
Translator: Heather Mowbray
Contributing Chinarrative editor: Isabel Wang
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Note from Sam Gao: The original link doesn't seem to work well in China so the article is copied to and republished byJianshu, a China-based blogging site. The English article is translated and rewritten from the original Chinese article, but the following is a shorter account of his story as well.
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务工者吴桂春的读书梦
孙 旭 谭翊晨
http://country.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0723/c419842-31794335.html
2020年07月23日08:12 来源：人民网－人民日报海外版
吴桂春展示新的东莞图书馆读者证。资料图片
因为疫情影响，在东莞近半年没有找到工作，吴桂春准备返回湖北老家了。离开之前，吴桂春来到东莞图书馆，交还读者证。他低头凝视着即将递出的读者证，很久才松开手。之后，他写下了一则读者留言：
“我来东莞17年，其中来图书馆看书有12年。书能明理，对人有百益无一害的唯书也。想起这些年的生活，最好的地方就是图书馆了。虽万般不舍，然生活所迫，余生永不忘你，愿你越办越兴旺。”
吴桂春怎么也没有想到，这则留言很快火遍网络，还让他获得了一份新的工作。接受本报采访时，他笑着说：“新工作地点离图书馆很近，下班之后我又可以去图书馆了。”
来东莞之前，吴桂春在湖北老家开早餐店。2003年，为了供孩子读书，吴桂春来到东莞的鞋厂打工。在合租的房子里，工友们喜欢聚在一堆打牌，吴桂春却喜欢独自在一旁静静地读书。这些年，他把《红楼梦》读了四遍，还读了许多历史演义书。吴桂春说，他尤其喜欢《三言二拍》，“我喜欢看这些书，它们特别能让我明事理。”
一开始，吴桂春只能在地摊上买书看，直到2008年，工友告诉吴桂春东莞图书馆可以免费借书。在东莞图书馆，吴桂春第一次发现了《红楼梦》原来不只有80回，而是有120回。此后，图书馆成了吴桂春在节假日最喜欢去的地方。“图书馆里有舒适的空调和宽敞的座位，条件太好了。看到书架上那么多书，我心里有一种踏实感，这里的知识是我永远也学不完的。”吴桂春在接受本报采访时说。
边读书、边工作的生活持续了十二年。今年年初，吴桂春已经交上5个月的房租，计划再找一家鞋厂工作，可是突如其来的疫情让大多数鞋厂都停工了。没有收入，吴桂春觉得自己留在东莞的希望渺茫，于是便出现了本文开头的一幕：他在图书馆依依不舍地归还了读者证，写下了一条感人的留言。
就在吴桂春四处求职的时候，东莞市人社局在网络上注意到了他在图书馆的留言，决心帮助吴桂春留在东莞“再就业”。很快，东莞市人社局职业介绍服务中心的工作人员拨通了吴桂春的电话。接到电话的吴桂春感到十分意外，他没想到希望来得如此之快。
经过多方协调，东莞市人社局为吴桂春介绍了某小区的做绿化养护工的工作。人社局工作人员向本报介绍，吴桂春的工作是对小区内的公共绿化区域进行日常养护，每天工作8小时，包吃包住，购买社保。
对吴桂来春说，东莞市人社局的帮助是场“及时雨”，“没有政府帮扶，50多岁的我哪好找工作，只能回家了。”工作落实后，吴桂春心里踏实了不少，但最让他开心的事情是，工作的小区离图书馆很近，他可以继续留在图书馆读书了。“对我来说，图书馆比什么都好。”吴桂春说。
其实在东莞，像吴桂春这样的外来务工人员有500多万，占东莞市用工总量7成以上。为了让他们更好融入城市的方方面面，东莞市下了大功夫。
在中央提出的“六稳”“六保”指导下，东莞市为了做好外来务工人员的就业保障工作，共划拨了2.88亿元的市级财政专项资金用作外来务工人员的社保和岗位补助。同时，面对疫情，东莞市还发出了《致广大来莞人员的一封信》，制定了“五配合四不愁”政策，保障外来人员的身体健康和就业生活，这对几百万外来务工人员而言，是直达心底的温暖。
近日，同样是一名来自湖北的务工者，在东莞的寒溪河，为了救一名落水青年，奋不顾身跳入河中。外来务工者没有把东莞当作“他乡”，而是可以像救亲人一样，搭救一个素不相识的陌生人。一位网友评论道：“东莞不愧是我们的第二故乡，是我们心中真正的家。”
“海纳百川”是东莞的城市精神，从改革开放初期“孔雀东南飞，百万民工下东莞”到如今东莞外来人口占比全国第一，东莞迎来一代又一代的外来务工人员，他们建设着东莞，为这座城市注入无限生机。无数的“外来人”变成了“东莞人”，在这里找到家一般的归属感。
当被问到东莞最大的变化时，吴桂春感慨：“东莞的城市变‘大’了，是一座更包容、更开放、更文明的城市，如果有机会真的希望留在这里。”
(责编：孟哲、史雅乔)
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