Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

This book had been on my list for a while and turned out to be some of the best nonfiction I have read recently. The author, Leslie Chang, is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who is Chinese-American. She travels to the Dongguan province of China where she writes about young women who come from small villages to the city to work in large factories. While most of her interactions are with two young women in particular, she also meets many of their friends and colleagues, while provides a wide range of content for her description of the factories.

Interspersed with Chang's descriptions of these women's experiences is her own family history. Chang provides a well-constructed view of post-dynasty Chinese history by tracing her family's story. Not only does this juxtaposition provide a history necessary to understand China's economy today, but it also knowingly contrasts Chang's experiences "going home" to those of the young women she interviews.

The descriptions of the factories and the women's lives there was fascinating. The factories themselves are huge compounds that often include dormitories, shops, and social services. Workers have very little loyalty to particular factories and change jobs often. Many workers Chang interacted with came across as flaky and transient - often they would lose a cell phone and have no way of connecting with anyone ever again. They were often dishonest with their parents and dreaded the complications of visiting home, not unlike American college students away from home for the first time.

The workers also came across as desperate to improve themselves and their status, but completely unequipped to do so - often spending money on pyramid schemes and poorly-conceived English or etiquette classes. To Chang (and thus to me, too) Dongguan's various cities were identical, but the workers were eager to explain the difference in status in working in the various cities.

There were large sections of the book that covered the business side of the factories as well. It was interesting to see the implementation of the Lean Manufacturing in factories that I had learned about in grad school. It was also telling to see what the impact of what we consider "poor work conditions" were in implementation - within the narrative, the work conditions did not seem unreasonable until Chang referenced the pressure the American companies were putting on the factories to be more humane.

Chang also portrays the prevalence of counterfeiting and lax ideas around intellectual property. In one section, she writes about how the large factories are vertically integrated, in the case of a sneaker factory, making everything from the shoelaces to the soles. She follows that descriptions with that of a factory gang, also vertically integrated, who steal authentic materials then assemble them outside the factory and sell them on the black market. The sometimes-empty malls are filled with storefronts that are poorly-spelled takeoffs on American brands. And at one point, Chang is having dinner with some young people who, upon hearing what she is writing a book about, earnestly suggest she just translate some recent articles from Chinese magazine to save herself time.

By contrast, in the U.S., we spend significant time focusing our students on innovation - Clay Christensen's books are a staple in any MBA diet. How to encourage innovation in large companies (a la Google's 20% projects) and how to turn innovation into business are problems our MBAs are being trained to solve. What struck me the most about the Chinese factory system that Chang describes is that no matter how much money we put into R&D here, China can undercut us almost immediately, negating our innovation. Their system is set up to work that way with a seemingly unending supply of interchangeable workers.

I really enjoyed reading this book. China is obviously going to be an important player in the world economy and this book gave me a way to learn more about it through a very personal lens.