Portraits of Chinese Workers

Qiu Xiaoyuan, 26, from Meizhou, Guangdong
When Qiu Xiaoyuan was 7, her father left the family, and her mother gave Qiu and her younger brother up to the care of an uncle. "He had his own family to raise as well," she says. "So our living conditions were really poor." At 16, she left her hometown of Meizhou to head to the boomtown of Shenzhen. Qiu is now a manager, but she has no long-term ambitions of staying in manufacturing. Her husband is also a migrant worker, and their daughter, now 3, lives with her grandparents in Jiangxi province. Qiu hopes to raise enough money to open a small shop so the family can live together. Factory work? "You can't do this for your entire life," she says.

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