The ups and downs of contemporary ＂gleaner＂

Most people don’t know about the scavengers. In fact, in reality, a large number of garbage cleaners living in urban gaps are not homogeneous groups, and their internal division of labor and stratification have already formed. A large number of scavengers still have the expectation of gradual accumulation and upward mobility. However, despite the existence of opportunities for social mobility, they are also very fragile. A natural and man-made disaster is enough to bring their decades of struggle back to the original point.

In a village in south-central Henan province, we have repeatedly heard that most people in the village and surrounding areas have gone out to collect waste products, and some villagers have made a fortune by collecting waste products, so we asked the village cadres to introduce a villager who has been scavenging for a long time and knows the whole waste purchasing industry. This is how we met Fang Zhenye. The 65-year-old Fang Zhenye started scavenging in the 1980s, and worked in the waste industry until 2010. In the past 30 years, he went from scavenging and collecting waste at a fixed point to running a waste collection station step by step, and every step was deeply branded with the change of urban-rural relations.

(A) missed the opportunity for development and embarked on the road of scavenging

Fang Zhenye is small and thin, but his eyes are alert, he is good at talking, and his expression is clear, his logic is strong, and he is not lacking in literary talent. It can be seen that he has a solid foundation in reading when he was young.

He graduated from junior high school in 1970, and then worked as a farmer at home for one or two years. He joined the army in the second half of 1972 and worked as a soldier in Chengdu for four years. In 1975, he became the first batch of party member to join the Party, and soon became the monitor. In the fourth year of the army, he joined the cadre teaching team with excellent performance. This means that being trained with emphasis is very likely to stay in the army in the future, with broad prospects, but it has lost the opportunity by mistake. Fang Zhenye’s fiancee was not at ease at that time, fearing that she would not want to be herself after her high level, so she went to Fang Zhen’s industrial home. Unexpectedly, she just got sick there and sent a telegram to him at home, so the army asked her to treat her. Fang Zhenye was in the coaching team at that time, and was talked to by his superiors. What the army meant was that Fang Zhenye’s lover was sick and would be a drag in the future, so he could not be trained any more. He missed the development opportunity, retired and returned home.

In 1977, after returning home, Fang Zhenye continued to farm until 1985, when he began to go out to pick up rubbish. One of the main reasons for his going out is to avoid the fine of family planning. He was fined 120 yuan that year because of his super-life. Because of his limited agricultural income, he couldn’t pay the fine, so he had to find a way to hide out.

At first, Fang Zhenye, who had just returned from the army, could not pull his face down to collect junk. However, for the sake of the family’s life, he had to put down his figure and embark on this road without too high cost. He said that at that time, in order to avoid the embarrassment of meeting acquaintances, he pulled a rickshaw out early every morning and went home until he could not see anyone at night. In this way, I secretly scavenged from 1985 to 1992. At that time, the income of scavenging was 5 yuan a day, much higher than the salaries of teachers and village cadres, and the local people’s views gradually changed. By this time, 50% of the villagers had devoted themselves to scavenging.

(2) Going out to pick up rubbish: being taken in for deportation.

In order to check the scrap market, Fang Zhenye lived in Anyang’s younger brother’s house for ten days in 1992. His brother is a college student and his sister-in-law is the head nurse. After living in his brother’s house for ten days, he felt very uncomfortable. He was afraid of being looked down upon by his brother, especially his sister-in-law, so he finally gave up Anyang and went to Luoyang with his relatives in a rage. After staying in Luoyang for three months, he collected waste products wholeheartedly. Fang Zhenye said that he was not so ashamed at that time. After returning from Luoyang, he stayed at home for more than 20 days, found five or six relatives with the same temper, and went to Dalian together. Dalian is a main battlefield for many local villagers to collect waste products. Until now, some villagers still do waste products business in Dalian.

Fang Zhenye’s memory of Dalian is not good. He said, "Dalian people and Henan people have different personalities, and they are violent, especially those who pick up junk." During his stay in Dalian, he was often injured, as were several people who went with him. After staying in Dalian for about half a year, five or six people who went with him came back one after another, and Fang Zhenye himself came back. During his six months in Dalian, Fang Zhenye was taken in for three times. Generally, the police station is involved in the management. When you arrive at the police station, you will be beaten first, and then you will be sent to the detention and repatriation station overnight at most. Before you send it, you must make a statement that you will never accept waste again and will never be here again. Then the detention and repatriation station will use the money of the deported people to buy train tickets and send them to the train. Only when the train starts will the person in charge of repatriation leave. Fang Zhen escaped from the shelter twice, once was sent home, stayed for five days and went to Dalian. The reason why they want to escape is that they can’t go to their residence to get their luggage and certificates when they are caught in the police station and sent directly from the police station to the detention and repatriation station. The first two times, because someone paid for bail, it usually takes 500-600 yuan to get bail; At that time, the income from collecting waste products was only 200-300 yuan a month. "If you come out for a month or two and get caught again, it will be finished." The third time, they were sent back because Dalian wanted to clean up the foreign population. Fang Zhenye said that his ID card and discharge certificate were lost this time, not to mention money and clothes. Fang Zhenye was very angry because he lost his discharge certificate, because it could not be reissued.Later, when he received the retirement allowance, he did not have a retirement certificate and was not recognized. Being repatriated, Fang Zhenye had no choice but to return to his hometown.

Fang Zhenye mentioned that at that time, some people in the village went out to work, and every year when they came back during the Spring Festival, people got together to discuss what they could do to make money. He said, "(At that time) officials earned more than 100 yuan a month, village cadres and primary school teachers earned a few dollars a month, and garbage collectors earned 500 yuan a month, making more money than county heads." Under such circumstances, after discussion, everyone still feels that it is more reliable to collect waste products. "After coming back (from Dalian), I was tempted by money and wanted to go, but I was afraid." At this time, Fang Zhenye’s lover discussed with her husband that she went to Dalian to collect waste products, and her husband took care of the children and cultivated the land at home. She thought, "When a woman is outside, people will have some sympathy, at least not being beaten." In this way, his wife went to Dalian and collected waste products in Dalian for nearly a year until Fang Zhenye was introduced to Beijing through another relative. In 1994, Fang Zhenye and his wife went to Beijing with their 17-year-old son. Since then, from 1994 to 2011, Fang Zhen’s family has been collecting waste products in Beijing. Despite the difficulties, relying on his hard work, luck and intelligence, Fang Zhenye opened up a situation in Beijing and experienced many twists and turns.

(3) The golden age of scavengers: "If you can pick up junk for three years, you will not give it to a county magistrate."

When I first arrived in Beijing, it was difficult to find a stable place to stay. At that time, for the sake of safety, the neighborhood Committee refused to let waste collectors in. Fang Zhenye managed to find a community to help the community clean up and take care of bicycles for free. They start cleaning at 3: 00 a.m. every day. By 7: 00 a.m. before breakfast, the day’s cleaning work has been finished. During the day, they collect waste products without wasting time. From 1994 to 1995, it took a year or so for Fang Zhenye’s family to be gradually recognized by the community and basically settled down from 1995.

When Fang Zhenye’s family first arrived in this community, they were careful everywhere and spent a lot of time on building good relations with the residents of the community. During the wheat harvest season in 1994, Fang Zhenye didn’t let his eldest son go back to his hometown to harvest with him, let him stay in that community to continue his work, and specially told his son not to be too busy collecting waste products and to do a good job for others. The eldest son is sensible, does a good job, and looks likable. The old lady in the neighborhood Committee likes this child, so Fang Zhenye and his family live in the community, and the waste products are also given to them directly. For Fang Zhenye’s family to live in, the neighborhood committee cleared out the small house where the garbage truck used to be, and built another shed to store the garbage truck. So this small house of about 8 square meters became the residence of Fang Zhenye’s family, and they lived there for ten years. Fang Zhenye said, "All my three sons grew up in that community."

Fang Zhenye told his son that he must have a good relationship with people. "We are at the bottom, and people are superior. Standing in front of people, people are too dirty. How can we have contact with people? I can only help people. " Fang Zhenye’s neighborhood is the family building of the municipal party committee. He said, "The heads of all units are there, the director, the manager and the manager. Officials have a characteristic: they are willing to pay, but unwilling to contribute. He didn’t take the flowerpot, rice and a few pounds of things, so let’s take them. We have sent more (times), and when he comes down from upstairs, there will be waste or food. If we are not here, they will put the food directly on our booth. " Fang Zhenye said that at that time, half of their food was sent by residents. For him, this solved their big problem. Several sons are big boys, and they can’t cook, and they can’t cook where they live.

There are about 1000 households in this community. The waste products that Fang Zhenye collected and sold at that time ranged from paper, cartons and cans to waste plastics, scrap copper and iron. At that time, they can easily get a net income of two or three hundred yuan a month. If they are lucky, their net income can be five or six hundred yuan a month. Therefore, in the mid-1990s, there was a popular saying in Henan, "You can pick up rags for three years and give them to a county magistrate." The peak of the whole waste purchasing industry was from 1994 to 2000. In the early 1990s, the income from collecting waste products was 200-300 yuan per month, and in the mid-1990s, it reached 400-500 yuan per month. At the same time, the monthly salary of a secretary of a township party committee was only over 100 yuan, and that of a teacher was only a few dollars.

From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, there were two main ways to collect waste products. One is not fixed, commonly known as "garbage pickers". These people carry a bag with a stick and walk around the streets. Such people account for the majority of the people who collect waste products. The other is to collect waste products at fixed points, which must be recognized by neighborhood committees and residents. The number is very small, and Fang Zhenye belongs to this category.

Fang Zhenye explained that although he started to buy in the community in 1995, he completely occupied the community after 1997. In the second half of 1997, Fang Zhen returned to his hometown to build a house. When he returned to Beijing in 1998, it was no longer an open community, and all communities were fenced off. During this period, because it is easy to make money by collecting waste products, people from all walks of life collect them. "The more people collect, the more things there are, and the less income there is. Young people with brains have begun to take crooked ways and steal. " Fang Zhenye said that the construction of a closed residential area was planned by Beijing in a unified way, and the house in his residential area and security room was built by his father and son. From the beginning of building a closed community, it became possible for a community to be contracted by one or two, and then it gradually evolved into a later type of waste acquisition-"package community" to collect waste.

As for Zhenye, although his community was closed in 1997, at that time he still cleaned the community for free in exchange for not paying the contract fee. However, by around 2000, residents began to realize that all waste collectors were rich, and some residents suggested, "Don’t look at junk collectors, they are rich, and they have to bleed." Fang Zhenye said, "At first, residents regarded waste collectors as beggars, but they were woken up at night and closed the windows." Later, it was found that it was not easy to collect waste products, and it was also interesting to sell waste products (for us). We were not allowed to collect sanitation at night, and we could not collect sanitation before 5 am. " From then on, people who collect waste products at fixed points like Fang Zhenye began to pay a certain contract fee to the neighborhood committee.

The change of the status of scavengers is actually hidden in the anxiety of urban people caused by social stratification. Scavengers originally lived in the gap of the city and were sympathized by the city people. However, with the changes in the city in the 1990s and the rising income of scavengers, they began to become a threat to the urban middle class with increasingly unstable status and uncertain future.

(four) the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, laid-off workers and the expulsion of scavengers

After 2000, another more important change has taken place in the waste collection industry, because at this time, a large number of urban workers were laid off due to the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, making urban cleaning an important channel for the employment placement of "4050 personnel", and the scavengers who had existed in the urban gap must make way at this time. For the other zhenye, the change began with the change of the neighborhood Committee. Since 2001, college students have started to work in neighborhood committees, while old ladies who used to work in neighborhood committees have to retire if they are over 55 years old. After six months’ training in street offices, college students who have just graduated from university will go to work in neighborhood committees. Around 2004, the director and deputy director of the neighborhood Committee who had been dealing with Fang Zhenye for many years were replaced. In less than three months, things changed.

One day, the new college student director came to talk to Fang Zhenye about the new policy of the community. When talking about this, Fang Zhenye pondered for a long time before he thought of the word that made him very headache at that time: "standard". He said, "I can’t even hear the word, and my head is big when I hear it." The director of the neighborhood Committee came to express two meanings. First, the community work should be "standardized" now, and booth fees should be charged for those who collect waste products; To clean up the sanitation, a special cleaning company should be set up, and it should be cleaned in a fixed period of time during the day. "Even if it is cleaned up before 7 o’clock in the morning, the leaves will come down again when it is windy during the day. Let the residents see the cleaning staff cleaning up. If you collect sanitation at night, the residents will only see that you are collecting waste. " Second, if there are unemployed people in this community who can’t find jobs, they should replace the original cleaning staff and give priority to the unemployed people in this community. Fang Zhenye said, "What community college students explain is that’ cleaning staff’ and’ cleaning’ are to ensure cleanliness at any time. You look at this explanation, so you say,’ Those who work hard rule people, and those who work hard rule people’. "

Soon, the new regulations will be implemented. Fang Zhenye said, "As a reason for arranging unemployed people, we were cleared out. But suddenly clear us out, what should I do? " He went to several old ladies to intercede, but several people said that it was no good and must be "standardized". When Fang Zhenye was worried, the residents who had arranged to take over his work came to see him. "I said what you should do, I won’t hold you up. I’ll leave as soon as I find a place. He said he wouldn’t do (cleaning). I understood after listening to his words. I asked,’ Do you sell (this job)?’ Finally, we agreed that I would give him money and I would continue to do my original work. "Unexpectedly, one day not long after, the residents’ committee suddenly gave Fang Zhenye a good lecture and forced him to leave. Fang Zhenye said, "At that time, college students were very fierce. If they were angry, they would get angry. If they said, you would slap you!" In desperation, Fang Zhenye can only find another way out.

(5) From scavengers to "waste recyclers": paying money to "package the community"

From 2004 to 2008, Fang Zhenye and his son were employed by the cleaning department of another residential property to clean up the garbage, and their salary was 700 yuan/month. Fang Zhenye proposed to the property department that he didn’t want a salary, as long as he was allowed to collect sanitation and clear away the waste. At that time, their gross income from selling waste products could reach 5,000 yuan a month, which was handed over to the property 1000 yuan.

Fang Zhenye said that cleaning up garbage is a work that requires experience, and not everyone can do it well. At that time, in the residential area where he lived, each building had 28 floors, each floor had a garbage room, and the garbage of 12 households on each floor was put in the garbage room. At 8 o’clock in the morning, the cleaning staff carried out the garbage with the bag of the trash can and collected it layer by layer. Because there is a distance from the garbage room to the elevator, and garbage bags often contain soy sauce bottles, vinegar bottles, leftovers, etc., inexperienced employees often delay time because of garbage leakage, which also makes residents dissatisfied. According to the regulations of the property department, the cleaning staff in the learning stage need to collect a building within 2 hours. Mature employees can take it in 80 minutes, and high-tech employees can take it in 50 minutes. Fang Zhenye usually comes down within an hour, so although someone else has changed in the middle of the property to collect it, he finally had to bring Fang Zhenye back because of complaints from residents.

From Fang Zhenye’s point of view, there are several principles for choosing what kind of community to enter. The first is to see whether there are more commodity buildings or family buildings in the community. The income of purchasers in commodity buildings is twice as much as that in family buildings, because all the people living in commodity buildings are rich. The second is to see how many doors are opened in this community. The more doors there are, the more uneconomical it is, because the more doors there are, the more people from outside will come in to collect waste products. The third is to look at the number of households. Fang Zhenye and his fellow villagers once discussed a general rule that people who buy waste products can earn an average of 1 yuan from each household every day.

Since the closure of the community and the standardization of waste purchase, the "waste recyclers" in the community have been managed by the property department and paid contract fees to the property. With the increasingly fierce competition for scrap purchase, the property keeps raising the contract fee. Fang Zhenye said that according to the current market, in a community of about 10,000 people, the waste recyclers have to pay 70,000 yuan to the property a year.

(6) A short turnaround under the economic crisis: renting a waste collection station.

After the 2008 Olympic Games, the economic crisis suddenly appeared in the second half of the year. Fang Zhenye said that at that time, some waste collection stations lost hundreds of thousands at once. A waste collection station usually needs millions of dollars, and the collection station usually stores a certain amount of waste before selling it. The sudden economic crisis has caused these collection stations with hundreds of thousands of goods to lose a lot of money at one time. Some people are buying stations operated by loans, but they can’t see hope, and they are also urged to pay debts. Just in the area where Fang Zhenye is located, three people who run buying stations committed suicide, all from Gushi County, Henan Province.

With many years of industry experience, Fang Zhenye has a keen grasp and analysis ability of information. After the economic crisis, the price of waste products fell to the bottom in the second half of 2008. At this time, Fang Zhenye, who had a good idea of the situation, spent all his money, borrowed some money, raised about 300,000 yuan, and rented a purchasing station with his three sons to do the business of scrap copper and aluminum. He believes that under the circumstances at that time, the price of waste products can no longer go down, and it will definitely pick up. As expected, after the end of 2008, the price of waste really began to pick up. The rent of the purchasing station contracted by Fang Zhenye at that time was 4,000 yuan/month. If it is well managed, the monthly net income can be more than 6,000 yuan; General management, net income is only 2000 yuan.

After more than two years of running the acquisition station, the economic crisis appeared again. Fang Zhenye said that when he saw the falling oil price, he quickly withdrew. According to his many years’ experience, if the price of oil rises, the price will rise; When oil prices fall, prices will also fall, and the waste business will also weaken. With such keen judgment and analytical ability, Fang Zhenye has not suffered a big loss in the acquisition of waste products, and has avoided big price fluctuations. Until returning to his hometown, Fang Zhenye has been paying attention to the market of the waste industry, but the market has been bad in recent years, so he has never made another shot. He estimated that he would never do the junk business again.

(7) Sudden storms: Cancer has exhausted years of savings.

In the second half of 2010, Fang Zhenye’s wife had a stomachache, and it was diagnosed as duodenal cancer. She stayed in a hospital in Beijing for more than 20 days and spent more than 40,000 yuan, but the hospital did not study for 3 or 4 weeks. Finally, Fang Zhen was asked to take a living specimen to the cancer hospital for testing, and the result of the test was that it was likely to become cancerous, so the hospital asked them to transfer to another hospital quickly.

In the Spring Festival of 2010, Fang Zhenye took his wife home for the New Year and returned to Beijing for treatment the following year. He spent tens of thousands of yuan, through various relationships, transferred to a hospital where a fellow villager was the vice president. According to the situation at that time, if you don’t have surgery, your wife will have a life span of up to 3 years; If you have an operation, you may die on the operating table, but you may also survive. If you live for another 20 or 30 years, doctors are 75% sure. What my wife means is that if it is only 10,000 yuan, I will have an operation. If it is more than 10,000 yuan, I will not do it. Several sons could not make a decision, and finally Fang Zhenye made a decision and had an operation. It cost nearly 0.2 million/200 thousand before and after, and finally it survived. Fang Zhenye said that before his wife got sick, he had more than 100,000 yuan in his hand. At that time, he had planned to buy a house for his son in the suburbs of Beijing. As a result, his wife’s illness almost spent the original savings.

Fang Zhenye and his wife withdrew from the waste industry. After returning to their hometown, their sons still made a living outside, but they stopped doing waste business. The eldest son bought a big truck and transported muck for more than a year. The second son, together with his daughter-in-law, contracted the sanitation of a hotel. The third son set up a grocery store in Dalian. Because he just started to open a store, he was not familiar with it. He bought fakes and was cheated. After more than two years, he lost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. This year, he just started to turn around.

A scene in Agnès Varda’s gleaner (the picture has nothing to do with it)

Fang Zhenye’s story is only the corner of the joys and sorrows of countless scavengers in Henan Province, but it is also clearly marked by major social changes such as the detention and repatriation system and the reform of state-owned enterprises. The changes in urban-rural relations have shaped a major turning point in the life of scavengers.Fang Zhenye, who locates himself at the bottom of society,In fact, both IQ and EQ are extremely high. After years of hard work in the waste purchase market, you can accurately grasp the situation, analyze the market and make timely moves. What he lacks is just a little luck. In Henan, a region with a large population and scarce resources, there are many people with outstanding abilities, but they just lack opportunities. Occasionally, a few lucky people can achieve social mobility and get rid of the "bottom" label.

In this village of nearly 4,000 people where Fang Zhenye is located, among the 10 households with an annual income of more than 1 million (about 1% of all households in the village), 3 households started from scrap purchase, and now they run their own scrap purchase market; Of the more than 30 households (accounting for about 3% of all households in the village) with an annual income of 500-1 million, about 10 households are engaged in the work related to waste purchase, mainly engaged in waste processing or second-hand goods business, and some of them later switched from other industries to waste industry. That is to say, about a quarter of the nearly 50 households with the highest income of 5% in the village are engaged in waste-related work, accounting for about 1% in the village, and some of them did not start from the waste industry, but invested in the accumulation of other industries. Compared with that year, nearly 90% of the people in the village were involved in collecting waste products, but less than 1% completely changed their fate. The social mobility of scavengers is really difficult.

Even with high IQ and high EQ, such as Fang Zhenye, he survived the squeeze of the laid-off tide and avoided the impact of the economic crisis, but he still returned to the original point because of a serious illness of his family. Although all three sons grew up in urban communities, it is still difficult for them to stay in cities, and the hope of intergenerational mobility is still unknown.

(The name in the article is a pseudonym. )