On this day, 30 September 2014, Xu Lizhi, a poet and rural migrant who worked at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, died by suicide at the age of 24. He published poems in the factory newsletter, and on his website, which some friends of ours translated. This is one example:
“The paper before my eyes fades yellow/With a steel pen I chisel on it uneven black/Full of working words/Workshop, assembly line, machine, work card, overtime, wages…/They’ve trained me to become docile/Don’t know how to shout or rebel/How to complain or denounce/Only how to silently suffer exhaustion/When I first set foot in this place/I hoped only for that grey pay slip on the tenth of each month/To grant me some belated solace/For this I had to grind away my corners, grind away my words/Refuse to skip work, refuse sick leave, refuse leave for private reasons/Refuse to be late, refuse to leave early/By the assembly line I stood straight like iron, hands like flight,/How many days, how many nights/Did I - just like that - standing fall asleep?”
You can read an obituary and more translations of his poems here: https://libcom.org/blog/xulizhi-foxconn-suicide-poetryhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2095168197334986/?type=3
