After a quarter of a century of market reform, China has become the workshop of the world and the leading growth engine of the global economy. Its immense labour force accounts for some twenty-nine per cent of the world's total labour pool but all too little is known about Chinese labour beyond the image of workers toiling under appalling sweatshop conditions for extremely low wages. Working in China introduces the lived experiences of labour in a wide range of occupations and work settings. The chapters of this book cover professional employees such as engineers and lawyers, service workers such as bar hostesses, domestic maids and hotel workers, and industrial workers in a variety of factories. The mosaic of human faces, organizational dynamics and workers' voices presented in the book reflect the complexity of changes and challenges taking place in the Chinese workplace today. Based on extraordinary and thorough field research, this book will have a wide readership at undergraduate level and beyond, appealing to students and scholars from a myriad of disciplines including Chinese studies, labour studies, sociology and political economy.

This book offers a systematic analysis of the impact of work organization on the social stratification of individuals in urban China. It explains why economic and labor market segmentation is possible and necessary in state socialism at a certain stage of its development, as in market capitalism, and how important one's work unit or danwei is to the life of socialist workers in Chinese cities. Based on survey data, personal interviews, and official statistics, the author shows that structural allocation, status inheritance, educational achievement, political virtue, and interpersonal connections (guanxi) interplay in determining an individual's opportunities for entering and moving into a desirable place to work, for obtaining Communist party membership and an elite class status, and for receiving material compensation such as wages, bonuses, fringe benefits, housing, and home locations.

In 1921, when Rudolf Hommel joined Henry Chapman Mercer on his expedition into China, they found a land untouched by the arrival of machine technology. Grain was planted in holes dug with a long-handled conical stone; it was threshed by slashing the stalks against slatted wooden frames. River-mud bricks were pulled across the fields on sleds with rope handles, then used to build houses which had bamboo roofs and soil floors pounded smooth. The hand-woven cloth was dyed, wrung by hand, and draped on large bamboo scaffolds to dry.Hommel limited his examination--wisely, in view of the wealth of examples that he found--to primary tools, those which met people's basic needs; he discussed the handicrafting of tools and methods of providing food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. The photographs and sketches are thoroughly documented, and the various processes are explained and, when necessary, located by region.A review by Florence Ayscough in "Books" (September 12, 1937) referred to the original 1937 edition of "China at Work" as a "book which reveals the lives of millions who, in order to remain among the living, must daily "hsiang fa tzu"--evolve methods--with tools incredibly primitive, yet incredibly effective." Nearly unavailable since that limited first edition, the volume is now more than a historical study; it is a first-hand source book for a time that is now gone.

Roughly 260 million workers in China have participated in a mass migration of peasants moving into the cities, and construction workers account for almost half of them. In Building China, Sarah Swider draws on her research in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai between 2004 and 2012, including living in an enclave, working on construction jobsites, and interviews with eighty-three migrants, managers, and labor contractors. This ethnography focuses on the lives, work, family, and social relations of construction workers. It adds to our understanding of China's new working class, the deepening rural-urban divide, and the growing number of undocumented migrants working outside the protection of labor laws and regulation. Swider shows how these migrants—members of the global "precariat," an emergent social force based on vulnerability, insecurity, and uncertainty—are changing China's class structure and what this means for the prospects for an independent labor movement.The workers who build and serve Chinese cities, along with those who produce goods for the world to consume, are mostly migrant workers. They, or their parents, grew up in the countryside; they are farmers who left the fields and migrated to the cities to find work. Informal workers—who represent a large segment of the emerging workforce—do not fit the traditional model of industrial wage workers. Although they have not been incorporated into the new legal framework that helps define and legitimize China's decentralized legal authoritarian regime, they have emerged as a central component of China's economic success and an important source of labor resistance.

Drawing upon extensive life history interviews, this book makes the voices of ordinary women workers heard and applies feminist perspectives on women and work to the Chinese situation.

Embrace the culture and get the most out of your time in China. Going to China for the first time can be an intimidating experience, even for those who have studied the language. In fact, traveling to China for the second, third, or fourth time can also be a challenging experience, especially if you intend to be fully immersed in daily life, get off the beaten path, and experience the "real" China. This China etiquette and culture guide is about how to get things done in China. Decoding China gives you down-to-earth information on how to deal with everyday situations—like eating at a restaurant or shopping at an outdoor market—that present unique and unexpected challenges for foreign visitors. Why being polite when you board a bus is a big mistake Finding a toilet (and what to bring along!) How to bargain for anything in a Chinese market Which train ticket to buy—hard seat? Soft seat? How the Chinese view privacy, and why it may make you seem suspicious Working in a Chinese office, and the politics of lunch As the Academic Director at the Chinese Flagship Center of Brigham Young University, Dr. Matthew B. Christensen has seen countless foreigners arrive in China…and fail to accomplish simple tasks like ordering food, boarding a bus, or making friends with a Chinese colleague. Why? Because they didn't understand China's basic cultural codes. This travel book will help you crack these codes. And with it, you'll soon be able to navigate your way in any situation.