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Rat People, The: A journey through Beijing’s forbidden underground

$30.00

Rat People, The: A journey through Beijing’s forbidden underground

SKU: 9781551528038 Category: Product ID: 11953

Description

Temporarily out of stock

Title: Rat People, The: A journey through Beijing’s forbidden underground
Author: SAINT-PAUL PATRICK
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 01/05/2020
Imprint: ARSENAL
Price: $30.00
Publishing status: Active

In a relatively short amount of time, China has become the second
largest economy in the world and is soon poised to overtake the US. In 1978,
when China introduced its economic reforms, its GDP was $214 billion; in 2019,
it is estimated to increase to $14 trillion. But the country’s rapid growth was
achieved on the backs and shoulders of its workforce, many of whom were peasant
farmers turned into the mingong,
urban migrant workers, celebrated by Mao and credited with helping China
achieve its economic miracle. Now, a million of them and their descendants live
underground in Beijing under inhuman conditions, where there is no light or
water and little sanitation.


Author Patrick Saint-Paul spent two years living among the 'rat
people' (shizu) of Beijing, in a
network of deep tunnels and 20,000 former bomb shelters built during the Cold
War. The mingong come to Beijing from
all parts of the country, in search of jobs and a better life, but they are
unable to afford their own homes on their meager salaries. For them, China’s
dream of prosperity for all is a bitter fallacy.


In The Rat People,
Saint-Paul brings the individual stories of the shizu to life, creating a
shocking cautionary tale about the lengths to which people will go in search of
a better life, and the human cost paid in service to the modern economy.

ISBN: 9781551528038
Dimension: 228mm X 152mm

Additional information

Dimensions 228 × 152 mm