{"id":34120,"date":"2014-08-13T10:33:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T14:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=34120"},"modified":"2014-08-13T10:41:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T14:41:48","slug":"factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/","title":{"rendered":"Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Factory<\/a>Leslie T. Chang<\/a>\u2019s bio<\/a> notes her gratitude to her immigrant parents for “forc[ing] her to attend Saturday-morning Chinese school” while growing up outside New York City. That multilingual\u00a0skill clearly\u00a0gave\u00a0her privileged access during the decade she spent as a\u00a0China correspondent for\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, while that\u00a0lofty\u00a0journalist background imbues her debut title with meticulous details\u00a0… but\u00a0what permeates her\u00a0Factory Girls\u00a0<\/em>with immediacy\u00a0and depth is\u00a0her intimate, gifted\u00a0storytelling.<\/p>\n

Life in 21st-century China\u00a0morphs daily. Businesses \u2013 and fortunes \u2013\u00a0appear and disappear overnight. The loss of a cell phone can mean permanently broken ties. Personal facts like birthdates are negotiable. Official documents can be bought. Lies are at least as\u00a0common than truth.<\/p>\n

In this uncertain\u00a0new world, some 150 million Chinese citizens are\u00a0mobile, hopping\u00a0from job to job, relocating from villages to cities. Fascinated by this\u00a0growing population of young and unskilled workers \u2013 some 70% of whom are young women \u2013 Chang chose Dongguan, one of China’s largest factory cities, as her research base.\u00a0“I was invisible in Dongguan,” she writes, able to move freely, meeting\u00a0\u2013 and often losing\u00a0\u2013 a rotating\u00a0roster of the city’s transient workers. Chang develops close ties with two of these “factory girls,” Min and Chungmin, who prove to be surprisingly transparent in sharing not only their hopes and dreams, but the secrets they would never even confess to their family or\u00a0friends.<\/p>\n

“The history of a family begins\u00a0when a person leaves,” Chang observes. These factory girls are often the first to venture out with the belief that “‘[t]he farther away from home you go, the more splendid it is.'” Like her subjects, Chang’s family’s American history began decades before when her father left China for the other side of the world. While\u00a0exploring and recording the factory girls’ first-to-leave stories, Chang also researches her own, interweaving almost a century\u00a0of her multi-generational\u00a0discoveries with the 21st-century narratives of a brand new China.<\/p>\n

Chang’s three-pronged book is an intricate mosaic of new and old, ambition and desperation, tenacity and indecision, achievement and loss. She writes with clarity and conviction, bearing witness to the breathless changes in this “place without a memory.” As history, as sociological study, as memoir, as just a downright unforgettable\u00a0book,\u00a0Factory Girls<\/em>\u00a0is quite the engaging, compelling accomplishment. That six years have passed since its publication makes me hopeful that Chang is\u00a0furiously working on another title. Impatient demands aside, here’s\u00a0to book #2 hitting shelves sooner than later.<\/p>\n

Tidbit<\/strong>: Watch Chang’s 2012 TEDGlobal presentation<\/a>, based on\u00a0Factory Girls<\/em>, here<\/a>. Meet her equally gifted storytelling journalist\/author and MacArthur “Genius” husband here<\/a>. Talk about a most dynamic duo indeed!<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leslie T. Chang\u2019s bio notes her gratitude to her immigrant parents for “forc[ing] her to attend Saturday-morning Chinese school” while growing up outside New York City. That multilingual\u00a0skill clearly\u00a0gave\u00a0her privileged access during the decade she spent as a\u00a0China correspondent for\u00a0The Wall Street Journal, while that\u00a0lofty\u00a0journalist…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,67,21,107,20],"tags":[6608,5873,10,68,24,25,5874,39,2019],"class_list":["post-34120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-chinese","category-chinese-american","category-memoir","category-nonfiction","tag-bookdragon","tag-factory-girls","tag-family","tag-haves-vs-have-nots","tag-historical","tag-immigration","tag-leslie-t-chang","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-susan-ericksen"],"yoast_head":"\nFactory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Leslie T. Chang\u2019s bio notes her gratitude to her immigrant parents for “forc[ing] her to attend Saturday-morning Chinese school” while growing up outside New York City. That multilingual\u00a0skill clearly\u00a0gave\u00a0her privileged access during the decade she spent as a\u00a0China correspondent for\u00a0The Wall Street Journal, while that\u00a0lofty\u00a0journalist...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-13T14:33:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-13T14:41:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/08\/Factory-Girls.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1054\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1599\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang - BookDragon","og_description":"Leslie T. Chang\u2019s bio notes her gratitude to her immigrant parents for “forc[ing] her to attend Saturday-morning Chinese school” while growing up outside New York City. That multilingual\u00a0skill clearly\u00a0gave\u00a0her privileged access during the decade she spent as a\u00a0China correspondent for\u00a0The Wall Street Journal, while that\u00a0lofty\u00a0journalist...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2014-08-13T14:33:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-08-13T14:41:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1054,"height":1599,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/08\/Factory-Girls.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/","name":"Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-08-13T14:33:53+00:00","dateModified":"2014-08-13T14:41:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-t-chang\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34120"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34323,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34120\/revisions\/34323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}