NR | 3h 32m | Documentary | 2023 At least these cramped garment factories do not use Uyghur slave labor. Nevertheless, their employment practices would trouble many Americans. The young workers, largely in their late teens are only paid pennies according to the factories’ piecemeal terms. Yet, they rarely consider themselves victims, because such work represents the best available option for China’s young and unemployed rural poor. From 2014 to 2019, independent Chinese documentarian Wang Bing followed a large group of these college-aged factory workers for a prospective trilogy, the first of which, “Youth (Spring).” Zhili is about 100 miles from Shanghai, but most of the youthful factory workers hail from rural Anhui and Henan provinces. Most of them are illegal migrant workers in their own country, because of China’s strict work-residency regulations. Of course, that makes the young workers easy to exploit. Never in the film (recorded over a five-year span) does a government inspector darken any of the factories’ doors, so it is likely safe to assume the authorities are looking the other way....Read more https://www.theepochtimes.com/bright/youth-spring-real-life-in-a-chinese-factory-5523968