Chapter 1519 Happiness is a sweatshop (first update, please subscribe)
With the long whistle, the train parked next to the small station was like an old cow, carrying a heavy iron load. The shackles and the rumble set off.
South Korea is poor, and it can be seen from this train - the train is an old-fashioned steam locomotive made by the Dalian Mantieshahekou Railway Factory left over from the colonial period. This kind of steam locomotive has been used in many countries After being eliminated, only a few countries continue to use it.
However, in the peninsula, the old steam locomotives are still exerting their residual heat. It is not that Koreans do not want to replace them, but mainly because the United States has too little aid and they are too poor.
If I can’t afford it, I can only sew and mend it for three years and three years.
When the train started, the crowded carriage became quiet. Most of the people crowded in the carriage were young people who went to work in the city. In the countryside of South Korea, all villages were equally poor. Many young people were so rigid. When they reach the age of fifteen or sixteen, they leave the village and go to the city. Although they may not be able to find a job, at least they don't have to eat the limited food at home.
As the train rumbled forward, one village after another passed through the train window.
The sky is still gloomy and there is not a ray of sunshine in sight.
This kind of weather seems to be what South Korea should be like - poor and backward.
Including the countryside around Seoul, the same is true.
Many villages are basically the same as they were a hundred years ago - low thatched houses everywhere.
Brick and tile houses are extremely rare in Korea.
As for those small western-style buildings that look quite modern, it is difficult to see them even in towns, let alone villages.
In addition to widespread poverty, South Korea also has very low forest coverage.
Many hillside slopes are bare, with only a few sparse naked trees and not many plants.
There is a reason for this. In this era, many ordinary people cannot afford to burn briquettes at home, and high-end burning appliances like liquefied gas are unheard of.
In this case, many Korean people will run to the mountains to chop firewood. Then use the firewood to cook rice, vegetables, and pig food.
Because the growth cycle of firewood is far less than the speed of common people's deforestation, and the common people consume a lot of firewood.
So, the mountains are bare everywhere, and weeds grow everywhere, but even the weeds will not grow long, because in the past two years, the Korean textile industry has begun to develop, and with it, the impact on sheep The demand for wool is increasing day by day, and many Koreans raise sheep in the countryside to rely on the mountains.
People chop wood, sheep eat grass...
It can only be said that poverty is the number one enemy of the ecological environment.
Although the weather was very gloomy, it did not affect the mood of the working men and working girls on the train at all.
You know, in this era, it is difficult to find a job. If you can successfully find a job, even if it is just a job that takes care of three meals a day, you are very lucky.
So, on the train, people are looking forward to the good time of being able to eat three meals a day after arriving in Seoul.
However, people's beautiful longings will end when the train enters the station. After the train stops on the track, the platform immediately looks like an exploding pot.
Hundreds of people will rush to get on the train.
Those who couldn't squeeze in climbed up through the windows.
Those who couldn't climb up would yell below, or curse "Xiba" loudly.
Then the train left again.
After the train left, the man sitting on the seat said to the girl in front of him again:
"Jiamei, don't be afraid. As long as I, Oppa, are here, no matter how hard it is to find a job, you will definitely be able to find a job. You just need to be with me well. After we arrive in Incheon, we can enter the factory and we can work every day. Enjoy a happy life, living in a factory dormitory every day, going to work, doing work, breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. Three meals a day, if you have to work overtime, you can eat four meals a day!
When I get paid and have a holiday, I will go out to watch a movie, an SEA movie, and then eat a bowl of miscellaneous sauce! My face, those days were as happy as a fairy..."
This guy raised his eyebrows while bragging.
That look made it seem like how beautiful it was inside the factory.
Actually, for Koreans, they don’t care at all about sweatshops or not.
After all, being able to have enough to eat is already a blessing from God.
Li Jiamei is a girl who is traveling away from home for the first time. She has never been out of the village before, and she doesn’t know much about sweatshops or not.
As for the life in the factory, when a man said this, he naturally believed it deeply.
But Li Tienan, who left the village with her, was very vigilant. Although he was young, he knew that there was never a free lunch in this world.
If the factory was really as good as he said, all Koreans would probably have gone to the factory. How could such a good place get their turn?
Therefore, he didn't believe a word this guy said. After hearing what he said, he immediately turned his head to the side.
I don’t even want to look at this guy.
But he didn’t want to see it, so Li Tienan was still careful lest this guy cheated his cousin away. After all, his cousin was very beautiful.
However, he did not need to be careful for long. After just over two hours, the train arrived in Seoul. There was no way, the peninsula was not big, and it only took a few hours to take the train.
< br>Like everyone else, Li Tienan and his cousin Li Jiamei, who came to Seoul for the first time, were very curious about everything around them. As soon as they got out of the station, they looked around curiously. In front of the train station, there are men and women everywhere carrying or carrying large and small bags.
The same is generally true for other people. Near the train station, there will always be some people looking at these people. If they see a single or two or three young women, there will be a few handsome and fashionably dressed men walking over. , after several hookups, the woman was seduced away. As for where will the woman go? It could be a brothel or a dance hall. In short, there are various possibilities.
However, few people are interested in Li Tienan's cousins. After all, there are men watching next to them.
In addition, near the train station, there are some people holding playing cards and shouting "factory recruitment". Often, as soon as the voice falls here, a group of people gather around and people They were all asking about the factory. Income, food, and so on.
Soon, someone was persuaded to get on a truck with others and head to the factory in Incheon.
Incheon has the largest number of factories in South Korea, with hundreds of factories. Most of them have attracted investment from overseas in recent years, and they are all toy factories, clothing factories, or shoe and hat factories. Among them, the number of factories invested by the boss of SEA is the largest.
The factory that Li Tienan and his sister went to was just such a factory - and it was introduced by the guy on the train.
Because Li Tienan, who was going out for the first time, didn’t know who to trust at all, but fortunately, the guy named Jin Renchang, although he said that the factory was like heaven, the factory in his mouth was indeed There are even some of the earliest factories in Incheon.
But like all factories in Incheon, this garment factory is also a sweatshop - it takes 15 or 6 hours a day, and a dozen people are crowded into a dormitory.
When the truck was about to enter the factory, Jin Renchang pointed at the factory gate and said:
"Tetsuo, Camry, look, the factory is here, I didn't lie to you..."
"Is this the factory?"
People stood up one after another and looked at the factory. , they had been fooled for a long time, and they wished they could enter this paradise-like factory to work as soon as possible.
What is paradise for these people from the countryside? They don't know that many missionaries have described heaven in this way, but for these country people, there is only one heaven in this world, and that is a place where you can have enough food. As long as you can have enough food, that place is Heaven.
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And what people discussed along the way was exactly this - in the factory, the factory provided three meals a day, and everyone could eat enough.
"When we enter the factory later, we will be in time for the meal, and everyone will be able to eat white rice by then. If one bowl is not enough, you can have another bowl."
As Jin Renchang, an old worker in the factory, showed off there.
"Then what if I can eat three bowls?"
Li Tienan has some nervousness problems. He has always had a large appetite since he was a child, so he has never been full since he was a child. When he was serving in the army at the age of 18, he thought he would have enough to eat when he got to the army. However, when he got to the army, he found that... he had not yet had enough to eat at home.
"Even if you can only eat 4 bowls, as long as you can keep eating, no one will stop you and prevent you from eating."
Jin Renchang proudly showed off.
“Do you know why everyone is willing to go to these foreign-funded factories?
It’s not just because of the high wages, the most important thing is that they really let us have enough to eat, and if one bowl doesn’t work, just eat it. Two bowls, not two bowls, three bowls.”
Is there such a good thing in the world?
At this moment, Li Tienan was a little uneasy. He simply didn't believe that such a good thing could happen in the world.
You can actually eat at will.
“Oppa, is it really possible to eat anywhere you want here?”
Li Jiamei also didn’t believe it.
“Don’t worry, although working in the factory is a bit hard, you can really eat until you’re full.”
When speaking, Jin Renchang said with some emotion.
“Actually, I didn’t believe it in the past, but after I got here, I realized what it feels like to be full!”
Eat full!
Let alone Jin Renchang, the other people in the car basically never had a full meal in their memory.
When Li Tienan, his brother and sister and more than two dozen other workers entered the factory in a large recruitment truck with great expectations, Ma Zhiwei was standing by the office window, holding a cigar produced in Mindanao and looking quite proud. said.
"This is also an opportunity..."
As one of the first investors in South Korea, in the past few years, Ma Zhiwei's garment factory has grown from small to large with only the use of cheap labor. In five or six years, it developed into a large factory with thousands of workers.
Logically speaking, he should be satisfied.
But just as Ma Zhiwei, who was a middle-level manager of the company, was not willing to settle for a mediocre life, he is also not willing to settle for the status quo now.
“In three or four years, if we seize the opportunity, the rewards will definitely be very generous...”
Saying this, Ma Zhiwei walked to the desk and looked at the newspaper on the table again.
The newspaper is today. Although it is a Korean newspaper, it is not difficult for Ma Zhiwei to read it because the newspapers are all square characters. In Korea, the square characters have long replaced proverbs, both in official and private On the level, there is no other reason. Too many Koreans want to work overseas, so they are working hard to learn Mandarin.
However, Ma Zhiwei doesn't care about these things at all. What he cares about is a piece of news in the newspaper. This seemingly inconspicuous news was published among several large pieces of news. It's not big, only about the size of a tofu cube.
He picked up the newspaper and read it several times. Just as he was watching the news, the thought in his mind became firm.
Ordinary people would take one look at that news and then forget about it, but Ma Zhiwei is not that kind of person.
He is a businessman, and he is a businessman who is unwilling to accept the status quo, and he is very good at seizing opportunities. The news in the evening newspaper was not very clear. The headline was printed in nine o'clock type, and the content was about South Korea's plan to build an expressway.
This news may not seem very eye-catching, but only businessmen know the business opportunities hidden in it, and the title of the news is very simple:
President Park meets with SEA highway experts.
(End of this chapter)