04 Jan 2021, 20:10

A Conscientious Security Guard

A cold front arrived as expected, freezing the final days of 2020. The bitter wind made commuters pull their clothes tighter around themselves as they hurried out of the metro station toward work. In Hangzhou, a humid southern city, the cold felt even harder to bear.

Walking down the steps from the metro station, I noticed a security guard dozing beside them. He looked quite young, leaning slightly to one side with his head lowered and both hands in his pockets. He sat beneath the construction barrier beside the station, his head dropping every now and then as sleep took over, seemingly unaware of the cold.

A strong gust of wind knocked over an electric scooter, and the noise woke him. Almost by instinct, he walked down the steps, went over to the fallen scooter and stood it back up. Then he straightened a few of the other scooters that had not been parked properly.

Curious, I went over and started talking to him. His job guarding the area outside the metro station was arranged by the municipal authorities rather than the metro company. It was also only a temporary job lasting a few days, not a long-term position. Once the contract ended, he would need to look for another opportunity and find work again.

Before this job, he had worked as a security guard at an industrial park in Binjiang District, carried steel reinforcement bars at construction sites, and done various other odd jobs. None of them had been stable or long-term. He did not say why. Perhaps he simply liked the freedom of living this way. Strictly speaking, he was not unemployed; because he was young, he could usually find another job fairly quickly whenever one ended.

As someone from outside Hangzhou who had come here to make a living, he seemed puzzled by the high cost of life in the city. “Look at all these people coming out of the metro. They’re all dressed so neatly, with new shoes and new clothes. I don’t know how they manage it.” He muttered this while watching the well-dressed commuters passing through the station.

According to him, he earned 5,000 yuan a month. In Hangzhou, a “quasi-first-tier” city, that was indeed not much to live on. To make things harder, 2,000 yuan of that income had to be given to his father, who otherwise would not have agreed to let him leave home for work. The remaining 3,000 yuan was all he had available each month for food, clothing, accommodation, transport and everything else.

What did an income of 5,000 yuan mean in Hangzhou? The average annual salary published for Hangzhou in 2019 was 80,817 yuan, or around 6,700 yuan a month. In other words, his income was below the city average.

“I don’t rent a place. I definitely couldn’t afford that.” “I usually look for jobs that include food and accommodation.” “When I’m between jobs, I stay in cheap hotels, the kind with very poor conditions. They cost sixty or seventy yuan a night, and I stay there until I find the next job.” I had not expected this way of living, and it stayed with me.

“This definitely isn’t a long-term solution,” he said while watching people come and go at the metro entrance. “For now, I’m just getting by. I’ll see what happens later.”

“It must be hard sitting here and keeping watch in weather this cold,” I said.

“Hard?” He smiled. “Look at my job. I don’t have to do anything. I just sit here all day. It’s easy. Not hard at all.”

Perhaps it was simply a difference in perspective.

These young people, moving busily through the city while remaining largely unnoticed, play an indispensable role in keeping it running. Yet they are also among those who face the greatest uncertainty and helplessness.

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Reference for Hangzhou’s average income in 2019: http://www.hangzhou.gov.cn/art/2020/6/30/art_812266_49452615.html