글로벌 도시 선전(深圳)과 공장 노동의 의미 — 쉬리즈(許立志)의 시집 《새로운 하루(新的一天)》(2015)를 중심으로

Abstract

In 1978, China began to overcome its political and economic isolation through marketization and globalization. By designating special economic zones, Chinese Communist Party and Government increased exports and seek superiority in the global market. Among them, Shenzhen was a testing ground that combined the continent’s labor force with the capital and technology of advanced economic entities. Shenzhen’s average growth rate of 20.7% was premised on the sacrifice of irregular workers. Xu Lizhi (許立志) was a non-regular worker and poet in Shenzhen. In 2014, he ended his life by suicide. His poetry became famous when it became known that he was one of the Foxconn workers. In a situation where there is a lack of objective information about the serial suicides of non-regular workers at Foxconn since 2010, his poem became testimony to the labor reality in Shenzhen. I used the keyword ‘labor’ to reveal how the Foxconn issue is related to Xu Lizhi’s poetry creation. Through his poetry, I looked at what the values ​​that governed Foxconn were, what the working environment was like there, and how that reality changed their lives inside and outside the factory. Above all, Xu Lizhi’s poetry embodies how difficult his life was as he moved between the workshop and a rented room. The factory forced him to live a life driven by repetition and speed, and the rented room was a space that could not comfort him when he was exhausted. Moreover, the city of Shenzhen has become a space where alienation from labor is increasingly being strengthened. Therefore, his poetry had no choice but to reveal his alienation from labor. His financial situation, where he could not even own the iPhone product he produced, had no choice but to drive Xu Lizhi into frustration. Nevertheless, Chinese society ignored him by tolerating rather than solving the problem. This is why Xu Lizhi considered death not an object of fear but a place of safety. Because only death guided him, who had nowhere to go.