I Can’t Take It Anymore”: A Glimpse into the Brutal Life Inside China’s Factories

I can't take it anymore. A glimpse into the brutal life inside China's factories. Sisters, I'm exhausted, mentally and physically. Every day, I'm trapped on the assembly line from 8 in the morning till 9, or even 10 at night. That's 13 hours in the factory, minus 2 hours for meals, still 11 hours of non-stop labor. My hands don't stop moving, and the pain has spread through my entire body. I feel like a machine that's about to fall apart. We only eat at 11 a.m., then it's back to work at 12 p.m., and the moment the clock hits 12, the machines roar again. We grind until 5 p.m., and then we're told there's more. More overtime, more hours, more pain. I thought I could finally go home at 8. They made us stay till 10. It's like working on a conveyor belt straight from hell. Non-stop products, no room to breathe, no humanity. I want to quit so badly. But after a few days of work, part of me doesn't want to waste the pain. So I push through. One more month, I tell myself. Even the overtime pay doesn't make up for this torment. My hands are swollen. I can barely lift my arms. And the worst part? The humiliation. I forgot to write one report, and the factory supervisor screamed at me, in front of everyone. I've only been here for five days. You got yelled at by your boss, so you took it out on me? Does that make you feel powerful? Is bullying a new management style? You shouted again and again, as if I wasn't even human. Just because I'm new, just because I'm a girl, just because you thought I wouldn't fight back. This is happening in Guangzhou, China's pride of economic reform, the city once ranked third in the nation's GDP. But the miracle is fading. In 2024, Guangzhou's GDP growth fell to 2.1 percent, barely ahead of last place. Nearby Foshan hit rock bottom at just 1.3 percent. Factories here are offering 6 yuan per hour for student workers. That's less than a dollar. The recruiter said coldly, everyone gets 6 yuan. Take it or leave it. If you want more, find another boss. Online, people are outraged. Many say the labor market in Guangdong has regressed 20 years. But the truth is, this is the new normal. China's manufacturing engine is sputtering, and workers are paying the price. Today, we're pulling back the curtain. This is the raw reality of working in a Chinese factory. One day feels like a week, inside China's factory life. No one dares to talk about today as Xiaonan's first day stepping into the factory gates. He's broke, desperate, and determined not to run away, no matter how brutal it gets. He's here to earn his first pot of gold. But he has no idea what's waiting for him on the other side of that swipe-in card reader. Waking up before the sun, we drag our bodies to the gate. Slippers in hand, entering what feels less like a workplace and more like a test of human endurance. The factory looks massive, cold, and emotionless. Can I really survive this? Swipe in, change into slippers. Clock starts ticking. From morning till noon, every second crawls by. By lunchtime, it feels like I've aged half a year. But this is just the beginning. After a short meal in the canteen, thank God the food's okay, we're thrown back into the production line. I don't know how long I can take this. Finally, when night falls and I clock out, it feels like I've lived through a week. One single day in the factory is like time in a pressure cooker. It warps, stretches, and breaks you. Somewhere else, a girl from Anhui is facing the same nightmare. Her mornings don't start with an alarm clock. They begin with the haunting reminder of her monthly paycheck, or the lack of one. Up at 6.40 a.m., she rushes to avoid losing an hour's pay. One minute late, and that hour's gone. No excuses. She doesn't live in the dorm. That means a 15-minute battery bike ride, wind in her face, exhaustion in her bones. By 7.40, she's already in the factory locker room, throwing on her uniform, bracing for another mind-numbing 14-hour shift. From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., the grind never stops. Lunch is staggered. If you're lucky, you get the second batch. Fewer people, less chaos. After eating, she sneaks 40 minutes of sleep in some forgotten corner of the factory. That's the only peace she'll get all day. All of this, for 200 yuan a day. Sounds decent? Think again. The day starts with a discipline meeting. Code for being publicly scolded. They say half your wage is for the work. The other half, for being yelled at. She works the inspection line. Every product must be checked, stamped, placed perfectly. No room for error. Just when she tries to sip water, the supervisor floats by like a ghost, watching everything. Eating or drinking. Forbidden. Last week, someone got fired and fined 200 yuan just for eating ice cream. You're constantly tiptoeing around rules, scared of the next punishment. Make one mistake placing products, and others on the line start yelling. The work is repetitive, robotic. From morning till 10 at night, you don't own a single minute of your time. On day two, she already feels broken. She doesn't want to get up. Her body aches. Her shoulders scream from repeating the same action thousands of times. She's not used to being surrounded by strangers, even though some co-workers are kind. They invite her to sit at lunch, teach her the ropes. But she still eats alone, in the corner, because solitude feels safer. This is what 200 yuan a day buys you in China's electronics factories. Sleepless nights. Aching shoulders. A life where one day feels like a lifetime. So, brothers and sisters, how long do you think Xiaonan can last? Blogger Xia Fan is a sophomore. During the summer vacation, he came to an electronics factory to work. The anchor finally decided to eat another bowl of instant noodles. Otherwise, he would be very hungry when working in the afternoon. One day, I worked all morning on an empty stomach, and then I was almost exhausted in the afternoon, so I still had to eat lunch. Who knew? The instant noodles were only halfway soaked when the fork fell to the ground, and the floor was very dirty. There must be a lot of bacteria. I could only go to the cafeteria to get chopsticks to eat. After eating a mouthful, I felt that a five-star restaurant was just so-so. I don't want to work during the summer vacation. I want to go back to school. I've finished the instant noodles now, and I need to sleep in the cafeteria for ten minutes. I'll go to work later. I have to hurry up and sleep. I had just dozed off for a few minutes when the alarm went off. I was so sleepy, but we only had one hour for lunch and sleep, and I was going to be late in a few minutes, so I couldn't sleep anymore and had to work like a cow. The motivation that keeps me going to work now is that my friend and I agreed to travel to Suzhou. We went to Xiamen last year. To be honest, before I went to explore the factory, I actually resisted in my heart because I always felt that working in a factory was a very embarrassing thing. I walked into the factory area reluctantly, and I was stunned when I arrived at the gate. I couldn't even order takeout at this location. I used to think factories were dirty and chaotic until Mr. Fang handed me a clean dustproof suit and reminded me, Your suit is wrong. You can't expose your hair in the standard entry process. That moment made me pause. Before entering the workshop, we were all disinfected amid loud, startling roars. Inside, the spotless machines and high level of automation forced me to reflect on my initial prejudice. I didn't dare to tell my family that I quit my 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. job because I was afraid they would worry and I would be embarrassed. It's up to you to decide whether to live outside or not. I think as long as you can earn money in the end, it's fine. After all, earning money is very difficult these days. When you're looking for a job, you can only work to earn money. China's wage crisis explodes. Across China, workers are taking to the streets. Not for protests against inflation or political slogans, but for something much more basic. Their unpaid wages. From factory gates in Shenzhen to hospitals in Gansu, the cry is the same. Give us what we've earned. As China's economy slows and manufacturing stalls, wage disputes are erupting like wildfires. Videos have flooded social media. Workers blocking factory gates. Teachers holding up protest signs. Nurses crying on camera. What's happening? In Shenzhen, workers at Guangbo Technology were forced to block the factory gate after the boss disappeared, along with their wages. He'd already sold the factory. Promises were made, broken, then made again. The money only came late that night, after a full day of standoff. Just days earlier, another protest hit Shenzhen's Guangming district. Hundreds of job seekers were lured by fake recruitment ads promising full-time work. In the end, only a few were hired. Angry crowds gathered, demanding answers. The middleman quickly threw hush money, 200 yuan per head, and vanished. In Xi'an, the scene turned chaotic. At the Didian Plaza construction site, a labor dispute spiraled into chaos. Workers, enraged by unpaid wages and forced eviction by hired security, retaliated, spraying fire extinguishers and knocking a guard to the ground with a shovel. The pattern repeats. In Hebei, construction workers blocked roads and site entrances, demanding overdue payments. In Xijiazhuang, they held up banners in protest. Since New Year, they've promised again and again, one worker said. Some of us have sick family members. We need this money to survive. In Nanning, Guangxi province, workers from a power transmission project pitched tents outside the company. They lit fires and cooked in the streets. We're ready for a long war, they said. Even teachers and nurses are caught in the spiral. In Shandong, non-staff teachers haven't been paid in six months. In Shanxi, schools asked teachers to return bonuses they'd already been paid years ago. One public nurse in Gansu makes just 1,300 yuan a month and hasn't seen her bonus in four months. A female sanitation worker in Jiangxi broke down on video. I start at 5 a.m., work over 10 hours, and make just 1,400 yuan a month. If there's a next life, I don't want to be human again. This is too hard. Protests broke out simultaneously in Zhejiang, Sichuan, Heilongjiang. In Dongyang City, Yunda Express workers went on strike. In Suining, Sichuan, security guards hung protest banners outside a shopping mall after the intermediary ran away without paying. In Kitaihe, laid-off coal workers stormed the local government office, demanding back pay for Social Security and health insurance. Unease and fear spread throughout China. 6,000 yuan is not as good as 80 yuan. Recently, people have been discussing online. How much is a monthly salary of 6,000 yuan in 2025 equivalent to in the 1980s? This usually uses the prices of the 1980s to compare with current prices, and then converts the increase into the salary of the 1980s. In 1980, the price of rice was about 0.17 yuan per caddy, the price of pork was about 0.95 yuan per caddy, and the price of eggs was about 0.45 yuan per caddy. Now rice is 3 yuan per caddy, pork is 25 yuan per caddy, and eggs are 6 yuan per caddy. With this rough calculation, food prices have risen by about 15 to 25 times. Let's take a look at the income of employees in the 1980s. Data shows that the monthly salary of an ordinary factory worker was about 50 to 80 yuan, technical workers could get 80 to 120 yuan, and the income of cadres and managers was generally between 100 and 200 yuan. If we calculate only from the perspective of purchasing power, 6,000 yuan in 2025 is roughly equivalent to 240 to 400 yuan in the 1980s. This answer may be unexpected because it is far higher than the average wage level in the 1980s. Although the monthly salary in 2025 reaches 6,000 yuan, which is equivalent to 240 to 400 yuan in the 1980s, many people are thinking, how nice it would be to go back to the 1980s Some netizens have said before, my father had a monthly salary of 80 yuan in the 1980s. Now I get 6,000 yuan, and I feel that the pressure of life is greater than in his time. Others think, although the income was low in the 1980s, I felt at ease. Now that the income is high, I always worry about unemployment or illness. Then the question is, the current monthly salary of 6,000 yuan is equivalent to the monthly salary of 240 to 400 yuan at that time, and the current supply of various materials is much richer than in the 1980s. Why do some people still feel that life is stressful now, always feel uneasy and miss the 1980s? In fact, there are several main reasons. First, housing, medical care, education, and other three mountains. In the 1980s, although the income of ordinary people was generally low, without housing, medical care, education, and other expenses, such pressure was much lighter. Let's talk about housing first. In the 1980s, most people's housing was allocated by their work units, and the housing cost was basically zero. Nowadays, buying a commercial house costs at least more than 1 million yuan, and as much as several million. It is really beyond one's ability to buy a house with only this 6,000 yuan salary. Let's talk about education again. In the 1980s, the tuition for children to go to elementary school or middle school was only 20-30 yuan a year, and even if they went to college for a year, it was only a little over 100 yuan. Now the cost of raising a college student, including tuition and living expenses, is at least hundreds of thousands a year. Finally, there are medical expenses. In the 1980s, medical treatment was basically free, and the cost was very low. Nowadays, although most people participate in medical insurance, the out-of-pocket expenses are also very high. If you are unfortunately hospitalized with a serious illness, you will still have to bear a large amount of medical expenses. Second, modern people have a more diversified consumption structure. People in the 1980s had limited consumption needs, as long as they had enough food and clothing. Therefore, although the wages at that time were low, they did not feel that life was difficult. The consumption structure of people nowadays is more diversified. In addition to food and clothing, people also spend on entertainment, travel, digital products, and household appliances. In this way, after conversion, the current salary of 6,000 yuan is far higher than the average level in the 1980s. However, as the structure of residence consumption expenditure becomes more diversified, modern people feel that the current salary of 6,000 yuan is more stressful than the salary of dozens of yuan in the 1980s. Third, the instability of work is increasing. Although people in the 1980s earned only dozens of yuan, their jobs were stable. They were assigned to a unit after graduation and stayed until retirement. Today, even with a 6,000 yuan monthly salary, job security is lacking. Companies may cut staff or wages, and workers over 40 worry about layoffs and struggling to find new jobs. This instability adds to people's stress and anxiety about the future. In terms of purchasing power, 6,000 yuan in 2025 is roughly equal to 2 of 4,400 yuan in the 1980s. So why do people still feel stressed? The main reasons are the heavy burdens of housing, health care, and education— pressures that didn't exist back then. Today's more complex spending habits also make people feel their income is never enough. For more UN videos visit www.un.org