The Heartbreaking Poetry of an Apple Factory Worker in China Who Took His Own Life

[eridani]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17373/lingering_words_from_a_passive_life

In late September, 24-year-old Xu Lizhi killed himself by jumping out of a dormitory window at a factory in Shenzhen, China. Foxconn, his employer, is the electronics manufacturing company that engineers the world’s majority of Apple iPhones.

With 18 attempted suicides in the last five years, this is no new story for Foxconn. Xu, however, a regular poetry contributor to Foxconn People (Foxconn’s internal newspaper), silently documented his reflections on life on the assembly line. Following his death, fellow factory workers collected these poems to be published in the Shenzhen News.

The English translations of Xu’s poems can be found at Libcom.

His poetry is heartbreaking—both because of the anguished expression of what was clearly a life tortured by the monotony and sense of meaninglessness on the assembly line, and because we can assume there are scores of other young workers like Xu questioning whether a life spent in a Foxconn factory is worth living.

“A Screw Fell to the Ground”

A screw fell to the ground
In this dark night of overtime
Plunging vertically, lightly clinking
It won’t attract anyone’s attention
Just like last time
On a night like this
When someone plunged to the ground

“On My Deathbed”

I want to take another look at the ocean, behold the vastness of tears from half a lifetime
I want to climb another mountain, try to call back the soul that I’ve lost
I want to touch the sky, feel that blueness so light
But I can’t do any of this, so I’m leaving this world
Everyone who’s heard of me
Shouldn’t be surprised at my leaving
Even less should sigh or grieve
I was fine when I came, and fine when I left.

[JimDandy]

1. Such soulful wrenching poetry...

and we never would have had it if his life had been other than what it was. That his poetry is helping to raise awareness about his work conditions is both good and bad. Bad because when corporations exported American jobs to China, they did not also export the lessons we learned early last century about working in poor conditions. I suspect that was not an oversight on their part.

[bhikkhu]

2. "I want to climb another mountain, try to call back the soul that I’ve lost"

Beautiful, in a way that most people who've had a hard time in life (whether they've come back from it or not) can understand.

Thanks for posting - reminds us that we're all the same kind of people, and miserable working conditions and hard times affect us all the same.

[Odin2005]

3. How many potential Shakespeares and Einsteins has Capitalism destroyed?