Source: CCTV.com

03-22-2008 18:16

Factory 798 today is an art zone. Yet opposite the bars and studios, some of its original workshops are still in operation, producing classified military industrial products. These workshops are run by the rules and regulations established fifty years ago. The workforce consists of young people. They work alongside veterans like Gu Quanying, some of whom have been at the factory for fifty years.

Gu Quanying further improved her knowledge by attending night school along with the other young workers. The courses consisted of two parts: arts and politics. The aim was to cultivate a new generation who were iron-willed and perseverant.

After work each day, all the mothers would come to the factory kindergarten to pick up their children. Many documentaries show how happy people were in those days.

Beijing Electron Tube Factory was a documentary with English subtitles, one of a series of commercial films that was designed for western audiences. The message was that 'Chinese people have the ambition and the ability to catch up with and exceed the world's most advanced countries and make China powerful.'

Factory 718's basketball team was very famous around the same time that the song 'We Workers are Powerful' was popular. The team even qualified for the municipal-level tournament.

Workers played basketball between the pipelines during their lunch break. No one can remember exactly when the team ceased to exist. But in the 1980s, the factory's workforce was cut from 10,000 to less than 3,000. Fewer activities, such as basketball practice, were held, and by the 1990s they had completely disappeared.

In the 20 or so years since the reform and opening, China has experienced profound changes. The military industrial factories, indicated by names beginning with a '7', found themselves facing great difficulties.

In 1991 when Li Baochen was named a national model worker, a photograph of him wearing a big red flower was posted on the factory's notice board. It was a great honour at the time. Everyone who passed the board would stop for a while, filled with either envy or respect. The notice board is now referred to as the advertising board, and it's where art galleries and artists put up their posters.

After the factory canteen was closed, the moulding workshop brought in a fast food company to cater for the workers.

During the fifty years she has worked in the workshop, Gu Quanying has had hundreds of apprentices. Just two of them are still working with her.

It's 4:00pm, and the workers are changing shift. But the queue is disorderly. Some of the workers aren't even wearing their work clothes. This was once strictly forbidden.