原作者：
来源Chinese Factories Now Compete to Woo Laborers
译者niggalbert
ZHONGSHAN, China — If Wang Jinyan, an unemployed factory worker with a middle school education, had a résumé, it might start out like this: “Objective: seeking well-paid, slow-paced assembly-line work in air-conditioned plant with Sundays off, free wireless Internet and washing machines in dormitory. Friendly boss a plus.”
中国中山市——如果王金燕（音译），一位拥有中学文凭的工人，想找一份工作，她的简历上可能会这么写：“求职目标：寻找一份组装车间工人的工作，要求薪水合理，节奏缓慢，工厂有空调，周日放假，提供免费无线网和洗衣机的宿舍。最好老板人也很好。”
As she eased her way along a gantlet of recruiters in this manufacturing megalopolis one recent afternoon, Ms. Wang, 25, was in no particular rush to find a job. An underwear company was offering subsidized meals and factory worker fashion shows. The maker of electric heaters promised seven-and-a-half-hour days. “If you’re good, you can work in quality control and won’t have to stand all day,” bragged a woman hawking jobs for a shoe manufacturer.
一天下午，王小姐，25岁，在与多位招工者接触以后并没有接受任何一份工作，因为她并不急着找工作。一家内衣公司提供了额外的工作餐而且这家公司还有会工人时装秀来丰富员工日常生活；一家电热水器工厂则保证每天的工作时间只有7各半小时；而一位来自鞋厂的招工人员则提供了诱人的条件：“如果你很优秀，你可以在质量监督部门工作，不用整天都站着。”
Ms. Wang flashed an unmistakable look of ennui and popped open an umbrella to shield her fair complexion from the South China sun. “They always make these jobs sound better than they really are,” she said, turning away. “Besides, I don’t do shoes. Can’t stand the smell of glue.”
王小姐一边撑开伞来挡住中国南方的炎炎烈日，一边表示对这些工厂的各种条件感到厌倦：“他们总是说的很好听。况且，我也不会去做鞋子的，因为我受不了胶水的味道。”
Assertive, self-possessed workers like Ms. Wang have become a challenge for the industrial titans of the Pearl River Delta that once filled their mammoth workshops with an endless stream of pliant labor from China’s rural belly.
现在像王小姐这样的自信而且自我意思很强的年轻人已经成为了珠江三角洲众多企业的挑战。曾经有无数来自农村的务工人员，把这里的各种大型工厂填的满满当当。
In recent months, as the country’s export-driven juggernaut has been revived and many migrants have found jobs closer to home, the balance of power in places like Zhongshan has shifted, forcing employers to compete for new workers — and to prevent seasoned ones from defecting to sweeter prospects.
最近几个月，中国出口驱动的强大工业开始复苏，许多农民工在家乡附近找到了工作。像中山等地的工人供需平衡被打破，迫使用人企业互相竞争新工人——也为了防止熟练工人为了更好的待遇跳槽。
The shortage has emboldened workers and inspired a spate of strikes in and around Zhongshan that paralyzed Honda’s Chinese operations last month. The unrest then spread to the northern city of Tianjin, where strikers briefly paralyzed production at a Toyota car plant and a Japanese-owned electronics factory.
这种短缺给了工人们对自己权利的激励，从而导致了一系列的在中山和其周围地区的罢工事件，其中就包括上个月发生在中国本田公司的大型罢工事件。这种局面甚至扩大到了北方的城市天津，罢工事件使得丰田公司的车间与一家日本电器公司生产瘫痪。
Although the walkouts were quelled with higher salaries, factory owners and labor experts said that the strikes have driven home a looming reality that had been predicted by demographers: the supply of workers 16 to 24 years old has peaked and will drop by a third in the next 12 years, thanks to stringent family-planning policies that have sharply reduced China’s population growth.
虽然这些罢工事件最终被更高的薪水所平息，但是企业家和劳动专家指出这一现状正印证了早些年人口统计专家所作出的预测：在中国16-24岁的工人已经处于顶峰状态，由于中国的严格的计划生育政策使得人口增长速度大幅降低，在以后的12年里这一年龄段的工人数量会逐年下降。
In Zhongshan, many factories are operating with vacancies of 15 to 20 percent, compelling some bosses to cruise the streets in their BMWs and Mercedeses in a desperate hiring quest during crunch time.
在中山，很多工厂都有15-20%的空缺。这迫使许多老板开着它们的奔驰或者宝马焦急的寻找新的工人。
The other new reality, perhaps harder to quantify, is this: young Chinese factory workers, raised in a country with rapidly rising expectations, are less willing to toil for long hours for appallingly low wages like dutiful automatons.
另一个新的转变，或许很难用数字去衡量,就是：在飞速发展中的中国里成长起来的年轻工人们，已经不再愿意像机器人一样长时间的做苦工，而且只能得到少的可怜的薪水。
Guo Yuhua, a sociologist at Tsinghua University, said the new cohort of itinerant workers was better educated, Internet-savvy and covetous of the urban niceties they discovered after leaving the farm. “They want a life just like city folk, and they have no interest in going back to being farmers,” said Ms. Guo, who studies China’s 230 million-strong migrant population.
清华大学的一位社会学家,郭玉华说，新一代的农民工受到了更好的教育，更多的接触到了互联网，被他们走出农村以后的花花世界所深深吸引。“他们也想像城里人一样生活，他们不想再回去当农民了。”着力于研究中国2300万农民工的郭玉华补充道。
But the more immediate challenge is to the Chinese export machine, which churns out about a third of China’s gross domestic product. Stanley Lau, deputy chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Industries, whose 3,000 members employ more than three million workers, said he had been advising factory owners to offer better salaries, to treat employees more humanely and to listen to their complaints.
不过更大的挑战是在于占中国三分之一GDP的出口行业。Stanley Lau, 香港Federation of Industries的主席，说他已经建议其下3000多名成员提供更高的薪水，友善的对待他们的员工，并时常听取员工的意见。
“The young generation thinks differently than their parents, they have been well protected by their families, and they don’t like to ‘chi ku,’ ” Mr. Lau said.
“年轻的一代与他们的父母观念很不一样，他们从小在温室里长大，他们不愿意吃苦。”Mr.Lau指出。
The expression “chi ku,” or eat bitterness, is a time-honored staple of Chinese culture. But for young workers in Zhongshan, it is not the badge of honor that an older generation wore with pride.
吃苦耐劳是中华民族的传统美德。但是对于中山的年轻人来说，吃苦并不想老一辈那样值得荣耀。
In an effort to avoid eating too much bitterness, Zhang Jinfang, a talkative 28-year-old, has cycled through a dozen factory jobs since arriving in Zhongshan after high school. “Sometimes I’ll quit after a few weeks because the work is too hard or too boring,” he said, eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant. “Money is important, but it’s also important to have less pressure in your life.”
张金芳，一位健谈的28岁工人，已经在他高中毕业来中山之后已经换了不少工厂了，原因仅仅为了少吃苦。张在外面一家餐馆吃饭的时候说：“有时候，干了几个星期我就不干了，因为工作太难也太无聊了。钱很重要，但是轻松的生活也很重要。”
Mr. Zhang saves almost nothing of the $260-a-month salary he earns assembling cardboard boxes, another notable shift from the previous generation, which saved voraciously. By Western standards, he works hard — six days a week, sometimes more when orders pile up — and he spends about a fifth of his pay on a rented apartment, having long since fled the bunk beds and curfews of the factory-owned dormitory. His dream: to one day run a factory of his own. “But for now, I’d love to work in an air-conditioned office,” he said.
张先生通过组装纸板盒，每个月能赚260美元，但是生活花销之后，基本上存不上多少钱。不像上一代人那样的拼命存钱，这也是一种巨大的转变。如果按照西方的标准，他是一位辛勤工作的人——每个礼拜工作6天，订单多的时候还要加班——但是差不多一半的钱要拿来交房租，自从他从工厂条件恶劣的宿舍搬出来以后。他的梦想就是有一天能有自己的一家工厂。张说：“但是对于现在来说，我更希望能在一间有空调的办公室里工作。”
One factor in the expanding consciousness of migrant laborers is an astounding rise in education, with an additional three million students graduating high school between 2004 and 2008. The result is that a growing number young people are ambitious, optimistic and more aware of their rights, said Lin Yanling, a labor specialist at the China Institute of Industrial Relations. Then there is their fluency with technology — cellphones, e-mail and Internet chat — that connects them to peers in other factories. “When they bump against unfair treatment, they are less afraid to challenge authority,” she said.
农民工自我意识的产生的一个重要原因就是受教育程度的急速上升。一位劳动专家林艳玲说道，2004到2008年有差不多300万高中毕业生进入社会以后，这些年轻人更有野心，更有朝气，也对自身的权利有清晰的认识。同时他们对各种新兴科技产品也非常熟悉——手机，email和网络聊天，这使得不同工厂的工人能联系在一起。“如果他们受到不公正的待遇，他们也会敢于向权威挑战。”
With her iridescent fuchsia toenails and caramel-tinted hair, Liang Yali does not exactly fit the stereotype of the “made in China” worker bee. Raised by rice-farming peasants on the island province of Hainan, Ms. Liang, 22, is happily employed at a lock factory, where she packs up the finished product into boxes.
梁雅丽，染了一头淡褐色的头发，脚趾甲上也涂上了各种颜色的指甲油，显然这与“中国制造”的工人形象一点都不符合。这位在种水稻的农民家庭出生的22岁的海南姑娘，对于自己在一家钟表厂工作表示非常开心，她的工作只是将完成的产品放进包装盒里。
She rents an apartment with two friends, eats out for most meals and spends Saturday night bar-hopping or singing at a local karaoke parlor. At night, before she goes to sleep, she sometimes plays a computer game in which participants steal vegetables from one another’s virtual farm.
她与她的2位朋友一起住，经常在外面吃饭，周末的时候就去泡吧或者去当地的卡拉OK唱歌。晚上睡觉之前，她还会玩“偷菜”。
Unlike many workers in Zhongshan, Ms. Liang had heard about the strikes, perhaps because the front door to Guangdong Mingmen Lock Industry sits across a muddy canal from where employees of a Honda lock factory held a rare protest last month. She expressed measured sympathy for the strikers, but said she was not interested in following their lead. “My boss is nice and the work isn’t strenuous, so I have no complaints,” she said.
与其他的在中山工作的工人不同，梁雅丽对于本田公司的罢工事件也有所耳闻。她对那么罢工的工人表示同情，不过她表示自己不会去罢工，“我的老板人很好，而且工作压力也不是很大，所以我没什么好抱怨的。”
Her friend and co-worker Li Jingling, 27, nodded in agreement, adding that their company sponsored sports activities and allowed employees to dress in street clothes on Saturdays. When the topic turned to her parents, Ms. Li said she felt sorry for them. “They go out to the fields when the sun rises and return home when the sun goes down,” she said. “No matter how difficult their marriage was, they would stick it out. For us, whether a bad marriage or a bad job, we’ll leave it if it’s lousy.”
她的工友兼朋友，李晶晶，今年27岁也对梁雅丽的话表示赞同。不过当话题转移到她的父母的时候，李晶晶显得有些难过：“他们每天起早贪黑的种田，不管生活多那么的艰难，父母也一直坚持着。但是对于我们，不管是婚姻还是工作，如果那很差劲，我们会选择离开。”
Back on recruiters’ row, the afternoon sun had thinned the already sparse crowd of job-seekers, leaving a few roughneck kids so undisciplined that not even the sweltering pipe factory was interested in taking them on.
重新回到招聘市场，随着午后太阳慢慢落下，市场里拥挤的务工者人潮也慢慢退散。
Xiang Qing, a 22-year-old recruiter for the Funilai undergarment factory, was looking wilted and abject under the shade of a plastic canopy. Her factory, which normally employs 2,700 people, was about 700 bodies short. She did her best to sound upbeat, but admitted that it was getting more difficult to find people who are willing to “love the factory and make it their home,” as her brochure suggested.
项晴，一位22岁的富妮来（音译）内衣工厂的招工者，无精打采的坐在一个塑料棚底下。她的工厂需要2700名工人，但是现在还缺700人。虽然她还表示很乐观，但也感慨现在的找工人变得越来越难，特别是“热爱工厂并将工厂当成家的”工人。
Ms. Xiang complained that too many young people were unwilling to work hard. “They’re all spoiled and coddled and have no patience,” she said. Then, with the interview over, she returned to her reading material, a woman’s magazine called Beauty.
项晴抱怨说现在的年轻人都不愿意努力工作：“它们都被宠坏了，被父母溺爱，没有耐心。”不过当我们的采访结束的时候，她专身拿起了一本杂志，《美人志》。
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从民工潮到民工荒
