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HOUSEWIFE & MIGRANT WORKER

Tiantian.

Tang

26 Years Old

Tiantian Tang was born in a village in Hunan province. After finishing primary school, she went to secondary school in Guangdong with her parents for a while. About six years ago, she moved from her hometown in Hunan province to Dongguan in Guangdong province to study for a junior college degree. After graduation, I worked in Dongguan for a while and got to know her husband from Maoming, a small and underdeveloped city in Guangdong province. In order to get more opportunities for a better life, she moved to Guangzhou to work after marrying her husband and chose to live in an urban village where the rent was cheap.

 

Now, being 26 years old, Tang has a 4-year-old son. Tang and her husband can't provide their son with good living conditions in Guangzhou, so the boy generally lives in Maoming city with his grandparents. Only on individual holidays can I follow my grandfather to Guangzhou by bus for a brief reunion with my parents. After their lives got off to a good start, Tang's husband's sister moved to Guangzhou to work. She didn't have a good education, so she couldn't find a good job, and she never married. So my sister-in-law stayed with Tang and her husband. At first they lived in a basement in a Village in the city for two years, but when economic conditions gradually improved, they moved to a poor apartment in Meiyuan New Village. Compared to the house of the past, the living conditions are still tough (the kitchen is connected to the bathroom, the interior space is dark, the walls are moldy and the facilities are poor...). But at least it has more space (three rooms and two living rooms) and six floors above ground. Meiyuan New Village is a typical urban Village in Guangzhou. The residents are very complex and the environment is dirty. Especially after the rain, the roads are muddy. In addition to the village in the city, the surrounding environment is very lively and the infrastructure is relatively complete. A house of the same size in a normal neighborhood costs at least twice as much as Meiyuan New Village. So Tang and her family live in urban villages because of their limited income.

 

Tang is a housewife at home, but she has to go to work every day. Her technical secondary school education has limited her career, and she now works as an accountant in a gym. Get up early every day to finish breakfast for the family and then take the bus to work. Guangzhou is full of men and women like Tang, most of whom live in slightly remote locations and rely on public transport to get to and from work. Tang takes more than an hour to get to work by bus during rush hour. Fortunately, Tang is a positive woman, and the gym offers her opportunities to exercise and socialize, so it doesn't bore her. Every day at 6:30 PM is the time for Tang to get off work. On her way home, Tang habitualistically reads some books or watches some teaching videos, because she spends her off-work time studying for a junior college degree, which is the basic requirement for migrants to settle down in Guangzhou. Despite the current living conditions of Tang and her family, Tang insists on staying in Guangzhou and believes that she and her husband will become the registered permanent resident of Guangzhou in the future. They are saving money so that they can buy a relatively cheap house near guangzhou as soon as possible, so that they can bring their sons to live together in Guangzhou for a long time.

 

Schedule

07:00 She wakes up earlier than her families. washes and dresses up quickly.  And she has to take the responsibility of cooking breakfast.
07:45 She goes out with cheap but beautiful clothes (dress and high heels generally) and makes up briefly.
08:50 After one-hour bus, she arrives her work place. And habitualistically chat with her colleagues for a while before starting work.
09:00 She starts her work on time.
12:00 She can get a 1.5-hour-break at noon. Generally spends it on eating lunch with her colleagues.
15:00 In the afternoon when there is less customers in the gym, she is allowed to do some exercises during the short break.
18:30 She can finish her work on time generally. And go back home by bus if there is no extra company activity.
19:30 She gets off and buys foods in the market of Meiyuan New Village.
20:00 Her sister-in-law has already arrived home when she is back. She takes off her dress and changes to T-shirt, then helps her sister-in-law to cook dinner.
20:30 Her husband arrives home during she is cooking. They eat dinner together and chat with each other or play their phones separately.
21:00 She calls her son in the hometown after doing  housework.

21:30 She start to study

24:00 She has to go to sleep after studying in order to make sure that she can be efficient enough in the next days' work.

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