Life in the Factory

So I've been horrible at keeping this blog alive...I still owe a lot of you an outline of what happened in China and Macau...it's coming. But while I'm still tryna piece it together despite the busyness, I was inspired to write about what life in the factory has been these last 8-9 weeks or so.

Hm... where to begin.

Working here isn't too bad. When I first started my term here, I spent a lot of time on the shop floor...the non-air conditioned with metal coils radiating heat shop floor. It's hot down there...and humid. I remember reading an article on the Star saying how Toronto reached a blistering 35+ degrees with a humidex of a "high" of 40. Well...on hot days, the outside temp would be nearing 30 if not above, so add onto that heat radiating metal, I'd say we're close to the same temperature. As far as humidex goes...hahah I just found out that the average over here in Hong Kong during the day is like 80-90. It's pretty humid...hahah

So that's what working here has been like. I spend most of the time in the office area where it's suppose to be air conditioned. More like everywhere in the office is air conditioned except for my section. No idea why. But I suppose after a couple weeks of it, I've gotten used to it.

I think that's one thing I've built up a tolerance for in HK, a tolerance for heat and humidity. I don't sweat as much as I did when I first arrived. Sunday I was walking around Fa Yuen Street outside and it was hot and humid, but it didn't really bug me...i guess working on the shop floor without a fan to at least cool off your sweat really trains you for high heat.

Something interesting happened today. We had a fire drill. I can't remember the last time I had one of those...maybe gr. 12? Like over 3 years ago? But imagine a factory doing that, with all the people coming out...it was kinda funny...actually it reminded me of elementary school. In typical Hong Kong fashion, the from each department who was "in charge" of making sure we got out, wore a cross guard like band around their waste and shoulder, holding up a flurouscent pink or yellow card board paper with Chinese words printed on office paper taped onto it.

Here's a heavily pixelated picture of our team, posing while we "lined up" outside of the factory during the fire drill:














How about the food?

Well here at the factory, they serve us lunch. But that's been an interesting culinary experience all on its own. Basically they have two large pots of rice that everyone scoops from. Then we all scurry away to our tables where we have mysterious dishes waiting to be uncovered. But when uncovered, the usual reaction is...well it's still mysterious. Hahah I often here the usual (in Cantonese), "What is this?" and "Who puts this kinda vegetable with this dish?" One time we had deep fried fish, and it was so deep fried...there was no more fish. It was just deep fried powder. hahah

Another intersting thing is the soup. Usually we drink soup after our meal, but we all get it from this huge pot. So one day as I walked up to get my soup, I saw another employee bring his bowl over to the pot. We usually just use the bowl we eat out from to drink the soup. But as he poured the soup from the ladel into his bowl, the bowl was substantially smaller than the ladel...so as he poured, the soup just overflowed out of his bowl and fell right back into the communal pot of soup. MMmmmm... "ga liu"

But other than that...this trip has been really interesting. Not very many people can comprehend what it's like working in a factory, let alone a factory in Asia. It's really different. When I get back to Toronto I'll be working in another factory, but this time in a multinational company. So it'll be interesting to see how different it really is.

I'm really blessed to have had the chance to get some international experience working...cuz afterall, perhaps someday I'll return to China and work in a factory once more.