FOCUS: Documentary to chronicle life on China's bamboo scaffolds

Asian Economic News, Feb 23, 2004

BEIJING, Feb. 18 Kyodo

A documentary film due out soon in Europe and the United States will depict the little-known and often harsh life of the millions construction workers behind urban China's rapid development of high-rise apartments, office towers and physical infrastructure.

The 90-minute movie by Chinese author and film teacher Guo Xiaolu, 30, will show close-ups of workers at the hundreds of road-widening, subway-expansion and building construction sites in Beijing, which is striving for the look of full modernization by the 2008 Olympic Games.

To build everything from sports arenas to the interiors of government offices, Beijing construction firms hire poor or out-of-work countryside dwellers for 200 ($24.2) to 1,000 yuan per month, employing from 80 million to 120 million Chinese in construction, according to government statistics.

During her interviews, some of which were interrupted by construction managers, Guo said she found ''a lot'' of workers had not been paid before the Spring Festival holiday when they return to the countryside to see family and that others could not afford to live in Beijing.

One worker said he dared not enter Starbuck's coffee shops and another said he lingers around beauty salons just to eye city women.

The workers rarely bring their families to urban construction sites because there is no place for them to live and because city schools refuse to enroll the children of migrant workers.

According to Beijing Evening News, workers from the countryside are still owed 7.29 billion yuan, 99.2% of it to construction workers.

Safety issues also concerned the workers, and stunned the film's Danish soundman when he saw workers standing a meter from falling material, Guo said. She also worked with a British camerawoman during her month of filming just before the Spring Festival on Jan. 22.

Reportable accidents are 25 times more common in China than in Japan and Singapore, according to the International Labor Organization and China Daily reported 883,000 accidents from January through November 2003 in which about 1,170 workers were killed.

Among the saddest sightings, Guo said, were men over 50 who had spend their whole adult lives on construction sites. They have no women in their lives and plan to stay in construction past age 70, doing odd jobs that earn about 300 yuan per month.

Younger men, Guo said, have girlfriends at home or dream about women, especially those willing to live without much money.

''They're sacrificing their whole youth to build the country,'' Guo said, explaining why she chose the topic. ''Construction workers are the most symbolic of China's development. Buying homes and buying cars are symbolic, too, but construction workers represent the whole country.''

After the founding of Communist China in 1949, construction workers were heroes. One, named Lei Feng, attained martyr status after being killed in a work-related accident at age 22.

''I was moved the whole time, but listening to their stories made me ashamed as an intellectual woman,'' Guo said about her own project on construction workers. ''It's not an equal life.''

Guo, who has written seven books, including one English-language novel based on her native southern China fishing village, teaches film to university students in Beijing.

She has also sold a film on immigration to the British Broadcasting Corp.

Royalties from her translated novel, the Village of Stone, are paying for the film, which has cost about 70,000 yuan so far.

Tentatively called ''The Concrete Revolution,'' the documentary will be ready to view by July when Guo will target film festivals in France, Britain and the United States.

Although other Chinese filmmakers have made documentaries about construction workers, viewers overseas are still curious, said Beijing-based documentary director Li Yu.

''Movies about the low level, about low-level workers, low-level prostitutes, intense performances, have become a trend,'' Li said.

Overseas, she added, ''People are paying attention to life in China, so there's a market.''