Online Appendix C: Life Under the Great Transformations—Four Biographies
Mr. Lie Income: 2500 yuan /month Education: Elementary School Hukou Status: Rural
It was in 1986. I knew Shenzhen was where the reform started. My hometown is close to Shenzhen, it’s in Heyuan. My family was very poor, We picked firewood for sale and couldn’t make more than 10 yuan per month. My classmates and friends first came and I heard that you could make a few hundreds per month. That was a huge attraction. We wanted to change our life so we came. At first I was baby-sitting for my relatives. Life in Shenzhen was quite comfortable, food, clothing, housing and transportation. When I first crossed the city border, I saw the street-lights and the trees, I rarely saw those in my hometown—our little roads were filled with sand, so I thought the Asphalt streets in the city were so pretty. It was relatively to obtain an urban hukou then. You paid some money and found some connections. Now it’s very difficult, with the point system and you need to have a diploma, and some contribution, like if you are master or a Ph.D.
Mr. Lu. Income: 2000 yuan/month Education: Elementary School Hukou Status: Rural
I came the year when Shenzhen airport was open, Baoan Airport, 1992. I remember it clearly because that’s when Chairman Deng came to visit and I went to see him. Many people went to see him. Back then life in my village was extremely difficult. It’s in a mountain and the wood cost so much…if you cut some for sale the fee was 175 yuan, the overall cost was about 300 per tree. In order to survive we had to take wood out to the market and sell it but there was no way…there was no way to live. Without connections you couldn’t sell your wood even if you had managed to cut some, because a private company with connections in the village government controlled everything, and if I made bribes to make connections the money from wood sales wouldn’t even cover the bribes. They exploited you under the name of the state but they were actually a private company. But I had no land so the only way for me to live was to sell wood. So I had to leave. My first job in the city was on a construction site to pave the grounds. I worked from 8am to 8pm and it was exhausting but I made 50 yuan a day, minus meals I still had 45 left. I made 1.6 yuan for each square-meter I did, now even back home in my village it’s 10 yuan for one square-meter. Those people found some loopholes to mooch off of the state, my stuff…they just took it away from me. The village government and the police. I still have some burdens. I have an 85-year-old mother at home and a handicapped brother. People in my village treated me differently after my son got into college. My wife left me when he was one and half years old.
Mr. Lin Income: 35000 yuan/month Education: College Hukou Status: Local
I came here at the beginning of the reform, 1981. I was transferred from the military in an inland city to Shenzhen. They were selecting top members from my group, I was the head of the cohort, a party member, the wanted people like that to come to Shenzhen, so I got selected. After I was demobilized—transitioning from the military to the local (defang) I was by default a civil servant. I was a cadre in the military, the demobilization was from the military to the local, it was in 1993. I got into the public security system. I had been in the military since 1978 and once was a training officer. …when I started in the local, I was already more than 35. From a soldier to a cadre, then to a leadership position, then to the local, every step took time, so after all that it was hard not be over 35. With this age cap, a lot of opportunities for promotion are closed.
Mr. Cong Income : 5500 yuan/month Education: College Hukou Status: Non-Local
I graduated from college in 1968 with a degree traditional Chinese medicine. I had been working in the staff hospital of a state-owned vessel manufacturer. Then 1992 there was the reform that turned my factory from public service unit (shiyedanwei) to an enterprise unit, which kicked me out of the state-cadre category and changed the wage and social security policy. Before the reform I had belonged to the state-cadre group but the reform made me a factory employee, not a state-cadre. My pension is 800, as factory employee, if I were still classified as state-cadre, I would be receiving 4000 a month.
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