Handbook offers tips to tackle big-city living
- Source: Global Times
- [02:52 February 02 2010]
- Comments
By Wang Anna
About 10,000 copies of a manual on how to quickly adapt to living in big cities like Beijing are being handed out to migrant workers by an NGO called the Little Bird Migrant Worker Hot Line.
The NGO's founder, Wei Wei, who used to be a migrant worker, wrote the 55,000-word manual.
Besides teaching migrant workers how to get a job, sign an employment contract and get salary that is owed by access-ing public information such as the help line at the labor bureau and free legal services, the manual also gives many practical tips for life.
For instance, to avoid being embarrassed or yelled at by bus drivers, get on the bus using the middle door, or front door if it only has one carriage.
If you get off the subway at the wrong station, all you need to do is to get on the train going in the opposite direction.
If you need to answer nature's call in an area surrounded by fancy hotels, walk up to the reception, ask for the room price, then ask for directions to the washroom.
The book details several typical scams used by con artists and cautions female migrant workers about sexual harassment on buses and in offices.
One chapter lists all the emergency numbers and stresses emergency calls are free of charge.
The importance of using 114, directory enquires, is repeatedly mentioned.
I hope this book can actually help migrant workers solve some practical problems, said Liu Ming, a member of staff from the NGO.
