Name: 【TED】張彤禾: 中國工人的心聲 (Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China's workers)
Uploaded: 2013-04-14T07:58:42.000Z
Duration: 14 min 26 s

Hi. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the people

一些生產我們每天使用的東西的人

our shoes, our handbags, our computers and cell phones.

我們的鞋子, 皮包, 電腦還有手機

Now, this is a conversation that often calls up a lot of guilt.

接下來這段對話經常是喚起一連串的罪疚感

Imagine the teenage farm girl who makes less than

試想像一個從農村來的年輕女孩

a dollar an hour stitching your running shoes,

以每小時少於1塊美金的工資,縫製你的跑步鞋

or the young Chinese man who jumps off a rooftop

或者那個中國青年在加班組裝你的iPad後

after working overtime assembling your iPad.

We, the beneficiaries of globalization, seem to exploit

我們是全球化的得益者,然而我們進行的每一筆交易

these victims with every purchase we make,

feels embedded in the products themselves.

After all, what's wrong with a world in which a worker

到底是這個世界出了甚麼問題呢?

on an iPhone assembly line can't even afford to buy one?

為什麼在iPhone 生產線上的工人買不起他們生產的產品呢?

It's taken for granted that Chinese factories are oppressive,

中國工廠壓迫工人被視為理所當然

So, this simple narrative equating Western demand

換來中國人的苦難, 似乎是一個簡單而準確的描述

especially at a time when many of us already feel guilty

but it's also inaccurate and disrespectful.

然而, 這也是不正確, 不尊重他人的

We must be peculiarly self-obsessed to imagine that we

我們當下應該是自以為是地認為

have the power to drive tens of millions of people

我們有力量操控在地球另一端的數千萬人口

on the other side of the world to migrate and suffer

In fact, China makes goods for markets all over the world,

事實上,中國為全球市場生產產品

including its own, thanks to a combination of factors:

包括中國本身, 歸功於幾個綜合因素

its low costs, its large and educated workforce,

低成本, 大量且受過教育的勞動力

讓他們可以快速回應市場的需求

By focusing so much on ourselves and our gadgets,

藉著聚焦在我們自己身上和我們的小玩意

we have rendered the individuals on the other end

into invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable

微不足道, 隨時可更換的手機零件一樣

Chinese workers are not forced into factories

中國的工人並非因為我們對iPods難以滿足的需求

because of our insatiable desire for iPods.

They choose to leave their homes in order to earn money,

to learn new skills, and to see the world.

In the ongoing debate about globalization, what's

在大家如火如荼地辯論全球化時

been missing is the voices of the workers themselves.

Bao Yongxiu: "My mother tells me to come home

包詠秀(音譯): "我媽媽要我回家鄉結婚

and get married, but if I marry now, before I have fully

但是如果我在還沒充實自己前就結婚

developed myself, I can only marry an ordinary worker,

Chen Ying: "When I went home for the new year,

陳英(音譯): "當我回家鄉過年時

everyone said I had changed. They asked me,

what did you do that you have changed so much?

"你做了甚麼, 為什麼改變這麼大呢?"

I told them that I studied and worked hard. If you tell them

我告訴他們, "我很認真讀書, 也很認真工作, 即使你想告訴他們

Wu Chunming: "Even if I make a lot of money,

吳春明(音譯): "即使我賺很多錢

Just to make money is not enough meaning in life."

Xiao Jin: "Now, after I get off work, I study English,

肖晶 (音譯): "現在, 我下班後就學習英文,

because in the future, our customers won't

因為將來,我們客戶不單只有中國人

be only Chinese, so we must learn more languages."

All of these speakers, by the way, are young women,

以上你所聽到的說話, 都出自年輕的女孩

So I spent two years getting to know assembly line workers

我花了兩年時間, 去認識一些組裝線上的工人

like these in the south China factory city called Dongguan.

像這些在中國南方的工廠城市, 叫東莞

what kind of husband they hoped to marry,

whether they should jump to another factory

Other subjects came up almost never, including

另一些幾乎從來沒有被提出的話題,包括

living conditions that to me looked close to prison life:

在我看起來很像監獄生活的居住環境

days and nights ruled by the factory clock.

從早到晚被工廠裏的時鐘操控著

Everyone they knew lived in similar circumstances,

他們認識的每個人都居住在類似的環境

and it was still better than the dormitories and homes

The workers rarely spoke about the products they made,

這些工人很少談及他們所生產的產品

and they often had great difficulty explaining

what exactly she did on the factory floor,

she said something to me in Chinese that sounded like

Only much later did I realize that she had been saying

一直是到後來我才晃然大悟,原來她一直說的是

She couldn't even tell me what she did on the factory floor.

她甚至無法告訴我她在工廠實在是做甚麼的

All she could do was parrot a garbled abbreviation

她只是在機械式般模仿說些似是而非的英文縮寫

in a language she didn't even understand.

Karl Marx saw this as the tragedy of capitalism,

馬克思認為這是資本主義的悲劇

the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor.

這種工人與他們所生產的產品之間的疏離

Unlike, say, a traditional maker of shoes or cabinets,

不像, 譬如說, 傳統鞋匠或作櫥櫃的工人

the worker in an industrial factory has no control,

no pleasure, and no true satisfaction or understanding

工作裡沒有娛樂, 在她的工作裏

沒有真正的成功感或者對產品本身的認知

But like so many theories that Marx arrived at

sitting in the reading room of the British Museum,

坐在大英博物館的閱讀室想出來的理論一樣

making a piece of something does not mean

that she becomes that, a piece of something.

她就變成了這件產品或者這件產品的一部分

字幕列表影片播放

【TED】張彤禾: 中國工人的心聲 (Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China's workers)

factory

money

sister

city