The Years I Worked in a Textile Factory

I am Zhang Dagen, a graduate of the Mechanical Department of a textile university. After graduating in the 1990s, I entered a state-owned textile factory and started my career as a mechanic in a workshop with a temperature of 40 degrees above zero. In the collision between yellowed overalls and white shirts, I not only had to tame hundreds of roaring old-fashioned looms, but also learned to grow up among the sweat-soaked shirts of the female workers behind the wheel. From the induction ceremony where the old master stained his white shirt with engine oil, to personally dismantling the old-fashioned machines that accompanied his youth, twenty years have flown with the cotton yarn. When the wave of automation engulfs the roar of traditional looms, those time sheets stained with machine oil and blood, the gardenias hidden in toolboxes, and the songs floating in the evening shift locker room will eventually weave the threads of life for a generation of textile workers.