By Angus Whitehead

Asian Workers Stories
Edited by Luka Lei Zhang
Hardball Press (2024) / 122 pages / SGD 26.26

Luka Lei Zhang's prolific critical research, exploring Asian migrant worker writings, has truly informed and opened Southeast Asian migrant worker studies. This anthology of Asian worker narratives "represents a concerted effort to forge a bond among contemporary worker writers within the Asian context, fostering a collective platform that unites their literary pursuits and talents", says the blurb. Thus this anthology is envisioned as the beginning of a larger social as well as academic project, "it is my hope that more texts can be translated, collected, and published in the future", reads the 'Editor's Note'.

Zhang's anthology falls into two sections: first, 10 short stories, then a significantly shorter non-fiction section comprising of five non-fiction accounts. With authors hailing from across Asia (China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines as well as Singapore), for a number of whom English is not mother tongue, Zhang has translated approximately half the anthology with assistance from V. Ramaswarmy and Alton Melvar M. Dapanas. Some of the worker-writers' names will be familiar to Singaporean readers and scholars of local poetry: Rolinda Onates Espanola, Md Sharif Udin, Zakir Hossain Khokan and Md Mukul Hossine – so it is fascinating to encounter these writers shoulder to shoulder with less familiar worker-writers from across Asia. Zhang has done an admirable job sifting and discovering these narratives from a variety of published but often quite obscure, ephemeral print culture. Zhang also helpfully provides illuminating contextual notes and biographical details for each of these 15 narratives.

Zhang has a clear agenda here: for a wider readership to access these narratives no longer solely through a prevalent but privileged lens of "cultural" identity, but rather to empathetically allow ourselves to 'sync' with many of these writers' intention "to emphasize that the core focus of the worker-writer is to illuminate their economic role and the exploitation they endure within the capitalist world", as per the 'Editor's Note'. It is Zhang's hope that this collection will foster connections, encourage solidarity and be an empowering source for fellow workers, readers and writers across Asia.

The collection kicks off with a story by Zakir Hossain Khokan, a figure who did so much behind the scenes for the cause of migrant writers in Singapore. In 'Rain', Rames on his phone tells his wife back in Bangladesh, "No, my child won't be a migrant worker. He won't be a slave". A worker's determination that their children will escape the vicious cycle of poverty – even if breaking that cycle involves great sacrifice by the parent – is a theme echoed in several later narratives in the anthology. Back home, family, potential beneficiaries of Rames's sacrifice, seem to understand little of the life and work of their husband/relative overseas, his use of the word "slave", "what do the migrant workers do over there?" Rames is one of thousands of migrant workers in Singapore who, every day like so many goods, are transported back and forth in the back of lorries. "The sides of the lorry remained open to the air, leaving the occupants drenched to their skins". Thus the workers are vulnerable to fever as well as expressway traffic. Ultimately, Rames's lorry crashes, resulting in numerous fatalities thrown across the road including Ramesh whose phone was on, screen intently watched as he waited for news of his son Rain's birth. Rames's 'embarrassing' ringtone, almost certainly signalling news of Rain's arrival, continues to play: "there are people dying / if you care for the living / Make a better place for you and for me…"

Another story, this time by the Filipina transgender writer, Stefani J. Alvarez, 'The Autobiography of the Other Lady Gaga and Other Dagli from Saudi Arabia', utilises the century-old Filipino literary tradition of dagli, a genre-defying short prose piece whose characteristics range "from societal treatises to narrative arc-less [artless?] anecdotes of the quotidian". About a third of the stories from writers across Asia prefer a strikingly similar form. It would be interesting to explore why this might be so. Alvarez's story also includes key specific notes prefacing each section of this 'story', as well as the revealing use of institutionalised playful patriarchal office language such as "sexytary". Thus far in Singapore, even though hundreds of domestic workers have previously been employed in Saudi Arabia, we have so far read little about domestic workers' experiences there. This first glance is harrowing: whether it be local policemen requesting sexual favours at checkpoints or the numerous routine bruises on domestic workers' bodies doled out for minor mistakes and infringements. Yet amidst these appalling accounts, acts of kindness are also apparent: the narrator gives money and unfinished food to an old Bangladeshi worker who has worked for a pittance in Saudi for decades. There is a solidarity between workers, also between labouring class migrant Filipinos. As well as operating as a story, 'The Other Lady Gaga', recording life in Saudi c. 2009, is also a historical document. It transpires that the trans narrator has discovered clandestine employment as a sex worker. In migrant worker studies in Singapore thus far, little has been discovered or said of migrant sex workers' experience and writings across Asia. In a subsection of Alvarez's story, 'Queue', there is some deft patterning. The long queue at Telemoney for money remittance to relatives back home in the Philippines is echoed by the succession of covert customers for the narrator's sexual favours at her first assignation's flat shortly after she leaves the remittance queue. 'Hasib', ironically meaning 'respected', is the final section of the story. The trans narrator desires to visit the nearby mall. but is constantly harassed by dangerously aroused local youths. Ultimately, a sexual assault in the mall carpark is stopped by religious police – who hold the trans narrator responsible. When the narrator protests, the mutawa (religious official) pronounces "Gays here in Saudi Arabia are for raping and killing".

In the second, non-fiction section of this collection, we encounter Chinese writer Lu Caiyi's narrative, 'From Rubber Plantations to Construction Sites', which could also be classed as early worker writing, in its representing experiences in Malaysia in the mid-late 1970s. Solace for workers comes through enjoyment in reading books bought in Johor Bahru, or mail order books from Singapore. As the narrator shifts work from rubber plantation worker to construction worker, he is held back due to never receiving any training or apprenticeship – he is doomed to remain a disrespected junior worker. "No one cares about you". And senior workers' abusive, bullying culture of bossing around is deemed worse than the work itself.

In a longer factual piece about working in China, 'My Dagong experiences', Mengyu recalls how she was initially so stressed she regularly dreamed of traumatic experiences in factories. Her father calls her, "servant girl with princess syndrome". Thankfully a series of insightful lectures delivered in her village inspire and ignite the narrator; she realises "only self-confidence can save you". Mengyu also discovers Chinese poverty alleviation programmes with training leading to immediate employment in Beijing. Employed as a domestic worker in urban China, she finds that helpers are respected by families that hire them. As apparent in other stories in this collection, respect and trust are found to be keys to success. As she becomes empowered through a variety of local and national support programmes, Mengyu has even been able to give back by advising and supporting younger domestic workers. By 2017, domestic worker literature festivals are being held in her area, with such initiatives working as "a hundred hands supporting the family". A New Year's party is held for domestic workers. Through such training, collective support and trust, Mengyu journeys out of poverty into a life in which one's children as well as themselves thrive. "Things are gradually changing. The journey of Dagong is rough and dying, but also full of joy and excitement; it makes me feel that everything is leading somewhere, and there is a never-ending drive to push me on…"

The anthology concludes with Md Sharif Udin's 'Stranger Life in Singapore'. While the narrator admires glittering Singapore city, expatriate life is a high-stakes gamble: make your fortune as many have, or die in a workplace or road accident (also the fate of many), or remain as most somewhere in between. Sharif evokes the hell of workers' dorms a decade or so ago – housing 36 inhabitants in one room: "it is hot, and the stench of sweat from the bodies of thirty-six people makes the pulse turn upside down". Sharif ends his account with the question, "When will the migrant workers of [Singapore] lead a good life?" Construction workers' experiences here seem to lag recent developments and experiences of domestic workers in China and Indonesia, if not yet in Saudi Arabia.

The stories in this anthology demonstrate the resilience and determination of migrant workers, despite very real exploitation, hardship and sacrifice in their daily lives. As Shengzi notes in 'Notes from the Factory', "It is in the factory workshop where individuals become deformed. Once you're here, you're like a balloon that can be twisted into unusual shapes. The workshop contains such soil". This poetic critique of the institutionalised exploitation of workers highlights the urgent need for better working conditions and more humane treatment.

In conclusion, Asian Workers Stories makes a considerable contribution to the emerging field of migrant worker studies. Zhang's anthology is a testament not only to the power of storytelling but also to how crucial it is to amplify the voices of worker-writers. The short anthology is a must-read for anyone interested in acquiring a deeper understanding of the lives and struggles of migrant workers across Asia.

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