Chinese men in Sydney

Author: Mainland
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features:
1. My career of living off others didn’t actually start at the end of the year, on December 8th. My documented life of living off others began later when I was helping the boss’s wife carry a T-shirt and accidentally touched her breast. But December 8th was a significant turning point for my better days to come, so everything must start from December 8th.
On that morning of December 8th, I don’t remember whether my eyelids were twitching or not. I only remember the weather was normal, with sunshine and wind. December in Australia is like June in China—the weather was already hot. The sun, over 30 degrees Celsius, shone on the roof, and the hot wind rustled the leaves. I sat on the cement ground outside the warehouse, eating from a large aluminum lunchbox. I was eating quickly, and when a 2 to 3 wind blew, I wiped my sweat while moving my mouth.
As I looked up, I saw the boss his BMW driving out and dragging a dirty sack of rice from the car. It was a dirty, discarded sack left by the roadside, which wasn’t really a sack but a specially large T-shirt produced by our factory. The boss had just stitched one end shut to make it look like a sack. He carried this sack and walked toward the factory. At that time, I wasn’t nearly as confident as I later became—I was just a laborer. A laborer is a worker who can be called at any moment and dismissed just as easily. The status of male laborers in a T-shirt factory can be understood from the fact that the female workers didn’t call me by my real name but called me "Xiao Lu Zi."
The female workers would call out, "Xiao Lu Zi, bring me two balls of white thread!" "Xiao Lu Zi, find me a flat needle!" "Xiao Lu Zi, give me a back rub!" "Xiao Lu Zi, the boss is here!" Then they would burst into laughter. You might ask me, "How could a grown man tolerate that?" I tell you, if you haven’t been a new immigrant, you wouldn’t know. A person’s most urgent need is to have food to eat. The simple truth that eating is not as simple as it looks has been forgotten by many, but new immigrants never forget it. So when I saw the boss walking far away, my habitual reaction was to jump up and go upstairs to sweep the floor or move fabric. But on December 8th, something was strange. When I saw the boss carrying the dirty sack, I didn’t run away but walked toward him. I swallowed my food and greeted, "Boss, it’s so hot, why are you running around? Being a boss is harder than being a worker."
The boss walked while saying, "Yes, yes, being a boss is exhausting but unrewarding, haha." Hearing the boss laugh "haha" whenever he felt like it, I followed behind with a fake laugh, "Exactly, exactly. There are more workers in the world than bosses." The boss paused, then laughed "haha" again and said, "Xiao Lu Zi, your words have some wisdom. I’ve always wondered why there are fewer bosses than workers in the world, but now that you’ve said it, I understand." "Yes, yes, of course, people avoid hard work, haha." I thought to myself, "You don’t get it. This is fate. Fate is unchangeable. If it’s unchangeable, then no matter how hard you try, it’s useless." That’s what I really thought at the time, never dreaming that better days were still ahead. I smiled along with the boss and reached out to help him carry the sack. But when the boss saw me touch the sack, he dodged my hand as if electrocuted. He picked up the sack, glanced around, and whispered, "Xiao Lu Zi, just sit here and eat. Don’t leave. Do you hear me?" Then he looked upstairs and said, "If my wife comes downstairs, cough twice, and you’ll understand." I nodded.
The boss patted my shoulder and said, "Remember, don’t say I’m back. Haha." When he saw me nod again, he quietly hid in the warehouse downstairs where fabric was stored.
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