As the General of his troops, Alexander the Great is remembered; his foot soldiers are not. Behind Steve Jobs’ semi-deified image, Chinese Foxconn workers, foot soldiers of Jobs’ troops as described by Damien Ma, are only periodically brought into concern in coverages of working conditions at Foxconn. Much ink have been spilled on this subject, but few have revealed the strain onthese Chinese factory workers as a mental one.

Protesting against Foxconn and Apple in Hong Kong / Reuters

In the documentary “Dreamworks China”, written and directed by Ivan Franceschini and Tommaso Facchin, factory workers from a Foxconn plant in rural ShenZhen “talk about their lives, existences, built on a precarious balance between hope, struggles and wishes for the future.” The excerpt below shows interviews with several young factory workers who express their homesickness and their uncertain aspirations for the future.

As Chinese manufacturing have again garnered attention, let us be reminded of the mental strains on 200 million Chinese manufacturing workers who have left their homes